LETTERS

LITTLE ROCK — Unfair and dismissive

Not surprisingly, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette opinion columnists resoundingly sneered at the Occupy Wall Street demonstrators. Bradley Gitz characterizes them as “nutty”; Mike Masterson calls them the “unwashed, whining, smelly mob”; Paul Greenberg seems to view their anger and frustration as trivial and self-indulgent.

This is unfair, untrue and dismissive.

Setting aside my curiosity as to Masterson’s assertion of intimacy with the body odors of these people, I could easily indulge myself in similar attacks on the Tea Party. It would be tempting to describe them as plump, dowdy, old blue-hairs who don’t know how to spell correctly and are effortlessly seduced into parroting policy and economic mantras that are actually totally opposed to their own best interests. But they are entitled to their opinions and their right of peaceable assembly, and so are the Wall Street protesters, of whom it must be said that their capacity for crowd control, organization and financial management grows more impressive by the day.

Greenberg thinks they do not know what they are protesting. Let me help him. They are protesting the debasement and humiliation of the poor, the steadily increasing power of corporations and the rich, the slow and inexorable destruction of the middle class, the trashing of the planet, and the dismantling of intelligent government regulation that protects the powerless.

And so am I.

ANN LINK

Little Rock

Building lasting value

In the late 1950s, when I was in high school out in eastern Arkansas, we had had a big old wooden gym that the school used for sports and all types of community social functions. I always wondered why all of the towns around had the very same gym. As an adult, I came to understand that they were built using funds from a federal stimulus program similar to the Works Progress Administration. Most of the money stayed in the local community helping everybody. The craftsmen spent their earnings on the needs of their families. The material suppliers paid their employees and the employees in turn spent the money on the needs of their families and so on and so on.

The current talk is about major infrastructure projects. The problem with this is that there will be too few of them and they are too slow to have any real effect on our current economic problems. If we are going to do a stimulus program, and I think we should, it needs to be a lot of smaller projects all across the country employing thousands of local workers. Smaller local projects all across the nation can produce real results by meeting two major goals at the same time. They pump money into the economy by way of jobs. The second major goal is to spend the money producing something of real lasting value so in 2025 these improvements will still be in use.

There is nothing wrong with borrowing to pay for things that have a long economic life. Let’s stop yelling at one another and build something of lasting value for everyone.

JOEL BUCKNER North Little Rock

The desire to improve

If I understand Robert Wilson’s Voices letter correctly, everyone should end up with about the same net income. (Is that where you’re aiming?)

Given that situation, from where comes the desire to get ahead, to improve your situation? Why not just tax away all income and give to each what they need? Does that sound familiar?

Ask Karl Marx.

DAVID ROBINSON Tuckerman

What we really mean

We invite them into our homes. We introduce them to our friends. We laugh at their jokes. We listen attentively when they speechify. We give them money and our votes. So why do the Steve Womacks of the world not understand that when we say no new taxes, we really mean no new taxes?

If we must level the playing field, why don’t we do away with sales taxes? Speaking of which, back when sales taxes were being promoted as a way to save cities, it was said that the sales tax was a way for cities to pay for the cost of infrastructure repair brought on by the crowds flooding cities to buy at the malls. Now that so much buying is being done online, it must follow that the crowds are no longer at the malls, and therefore no longer doing as much damage to the infrastructure.

And for those who attend the small retailer to get educated about a product, then buy said product from an online retailer, that’s not the way it goes. Yes, they may get educated at the small retailer, although most use the Internet for that purpose, but they then buy from Wal-Mart.

So Womack and all the others like him should say it in their prayers. Say it in their sleep. Say it in Congress. No new taxes! Say it and believe it.

RICK SCOTT

Maumelle

A fool and his money

Six-figure jobs are now open at the Lottery Commission. The folks who’ll get them must have the right education, experience and political or family connections.

The job is seeing that more people can get the free money that folks around the state are lining up to buy tickets for.

Seriously, the most important job of handling lots of cash is not a deskbound director. It is eight or 10 auditors holding a tight rein on seeing that the cash taken in gets into the state’s bank account, and equally important, regularly checks on the convenience stores that are shoveling out these tickets and collecting the cash.

I’ve observed in my 87 years that it doesn’t take a smart man to give money away.

WILLIAM PAGE HILL

Springdale

A political advantage

When elected representatives tell their constituents that we must “have a heart” and spend millions of hardearned taxpayer dollars for the health, education and welfare of illegal aliens, it has nothing to do with being benevolent.

It has everything to do with political correctness and what is politically advantageous for that representative.

HOWARD BANGERT Hot Springs

It must be desperate

The Tea Party trots out another clown. Are they that desperate?

The 9 percent national sales tax, part of Herman Cain’s 9-9-9 plan, only applies to new purchases. I suppose we could survive on used groceries, medicine and hamburgers, not to mention it would kill the auto industry, boat industry and new homes.

Can’t wait to see who comes crawling out next.

D.D. WATSON Conway

What about athletes?

So much is said about what chief executive officers are paid. What about the multimillion-dollar figures that sports figures draw? They are a big part of the 1 percent. How many CEOs left college and began drawing this kind of money?

JOE CALVERT Forrest City