Letters to the editor Feb. 23

Legislators need to continue senior tax rebate

Regarding the loss of our senior tax rebate, I do hope the legislators will vote to continue it. The rebate is given to seniors whose income is below the poverty level.

According to the Internet, our governor is paid $141,000 per year. Our state is only one of 15 which pays their governor at that level. The median salary for governor is $129,962 and the average being $128,735.

Wouldn't Nevada casinos be a better place to look for more revenue? True their profit for 2010 was only 0.1 percent. However, they did manage a combined revenue of $10.4 billion.

Velda Kennedy

Carson City

State workers need to live with choices they made

I am so tired of hearing the public sector employees whine about the budget. Years ago they looked at the private sector employees and said "we work just as hard" and furthermore "we have an equal education." Therefore, they said in unison we want to be treated equally; we need to adjust our salary so that we are equals. Of course they didn't mention their superior benefits packages. So it was decided that they should be paid equally, but before they were paid more to go along with their better benefits.

Then came the recession and all the monies dried up. Companies had to lay off good employees who were loyal and educated and worked hard. The private sector had to face that reality. Now the public money has dried up, too. But now the public employees say we are different, we do not want to be treated like private sector employees, even though our employer, the state, can no longer afford to pay us; that does not matter. They whine "we should be treated special." Like many people today, they refuse to live with the consequences of the choices they have made.

Some even bring up education, where despite being far from the bottom in terms of money, Nevada is among the very worst in terms of performance. If the educators were in the private sector, the overwhelming majority would have been fired for poor performance. The University of Nevada Chancellor would be fired for managing so ineptly that we have one of the three worst state university systems in the entire country.

Sam Batdorf

Gardnerville