Letters to the editor for Sunday, Jan. 31, 2016

Counterfeit ‘R’ next to Kramer’s name

Wages, profits, retirement checks, and Social Security benefits — from the system you paid into — are your work product. Taxes, in effect, force you to work for the government by confiscating the fruits of your labor.

Republican political candidates should understand that. They should believe government “services” shot past “bare necessity” long ago, that most tax dollars fund monuments to political egos, as happened in the last legislative session.

Prospective Nevada Assembly District 40 candidate Al Kramer obviously missed the news that this country fought a war two centuries ago to outlaw conscripted labor. By refusing to sign the Taxpayer Protection Pledge, Kramer has announced his vote will be for sale to Gov. Sandoval’s grow-the-government tax-hiking caucus.

Voters who fall for that counterfeit “R” next to Kramer’s name may expect the back of the hand from their newly-minted Assemblyman.

Lynn Muzzy

Minden

A solution for unwanted political calls

‘Tis once again the season for political calls. I have an idea for you to noodle over. The next time a pollster violates your personal space and the quiet enjoyment of your home, give them answers which have nothing to do with your real intentions.

I for one am sick and tired of cowering when my phone rings. Insistent. Harsh. Nerve jangling. And if I answer it, someone on the other end claims they will “only take a moment,” then keep me way longer than that.

I quit answering my land line, and now only use it as a “dump line” for pollsters, potential scam artists, salesmen, etc., picking up messages every few days. I would get rid of it, but I need it for my fax machine. Why should I have to make this decision? I’ve tried asking them to not call me. Doesn’t work. Submitted my home and cell phones to the National Do Not Call Registry. They persist in calling. Some, such as the “This is your final notice to lower your credit card interest rates,” simply change the number they are calling from every time I lodge a complaint with the NDNCR. They hang up on me when I ask them not to call me.

We apparently can’t avoid all these interruptions, but when it comes to poll calls, think about steering them wrong. Once they figure out the information is flawed, maybe they’ll leave us alone. Just sayin’.

Linda Hoxsie

Carson City

Solar energy should be priority

Rooftop solar generates electricity at the location where it is used at the times when it is needed most, with virtually no environmental impacts, reducing our need for carbon-based energy with all its negative side effects. What’s not to like?

Yet with the help of the Legislature, Gov. Sandoval’s Public Utilities Commission has now kicked rooftop solar to the curb.

The spin is underway to try to cast all this in a positive light, but the simple truth is that those in charge have put the interests of big business ahead of those of the environment and the average citizen.

The problem is that rooftop solar threatens the traditional, highly lucrative business model of electric utility monopolies like Nevada Energy. God help us if individual citizens can cost-effectively generate their own electricity. Rather than figuring out how to compete with or use this new technology to full advantage, electric utilities instead try to kill it.

The excuse is “unwarranted subsidies,” the notion that non-solar ratepayers are subsidizing those who install rooftop solar. This conclusion is reached by using a narrow cost model that ignores the non-monetary benefits of rooftop solar to society at large.

And it ignores the fact the governor has provided more than $400 million of subsidies to large scale commercial solar.

Don’t be fooled — subsidies aren’t the problem, it’s who gets them, along with other protections, average citizens or big business. We know which side our Republican state government is on.

Terry Burnes

Gardnerville