The Voices page column by Americans for Prosperity's mouthpiece, David Ray, really belonged on the editorial page. The Koch brothers' group apparently doesn't like any taxes or governmental services.
The Koch brothers and other 1 percenters can fly around in their private jets and helicopters and have their private security guards. But the rest of us have to drive on public roads and need city and state services, such as law enforcement. Internet businesses use these roads for deliveries, and neither the businesses nor customers help pay for roads or other services the businesses use.
I think the only thing Ray is right about is that the nation doesn't need 10,000 different tax rates. Instead, I believe America needs Congress to pass one flat 10 percent sales-tax rate and one flat 10 percent Internet business income tax based on sales to customers in each state.
The 10 percent sales tax would be comprised of 0. 5 percent to pay for state and federal administration of the tax, 4.5 percent to state governments for freeway improvements and repairs, 2.5 percent for county roads and 2.5 percent for city roads. The business income tax would go toward prisons, jails and local law enforcement.
Even Wal-Mart is ready for an Internet sales tax.
Congress needs to act now. We know Congress won't make the one-percenters pay their fair share of taxes, and that means the public has to pay one or another if you want good roads and good government.
KEITH WEBER
Jacksonville
Fairness for all sellers
First, a riddle: Q: Why should you have dinner with a member of Americans for Prosperity when you know you will end up paying the bill? A: Because that way at least the waiter won't get stiffed.
Seriously, of course the Remote Transactions Parity Act is a bad bill because it would enact taxation that is very inefficient, as David Ray points out in a guest column. Thus, if you want to be fair to the brick-and-mortar businesses and please Americans for Prosperity, you should stop charging them sales taxes. Grover Norquist, president and founder of Americans for Tax Reform, would love that. So would David Ray!
Congressman Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) and a bipartisan group of lawmakers introduced the RTPA, a bill to modernize the nation's outdated sales-tax collection process, last month. Co-sponsors include Congressman Steve Womack (R-Arkansas), a longtime advocate of such legislation. This legislation seeks to fix a loophole that allows consumers who make online purchases to avoid paying their respective state sales taxes.
I think it is more appropriate for online retailers who make out-of-state sales to collect federal sales taxes rather than state sales taxes. This seems more efficient than having each state provide free software to each online retailer to collect and remit the taxes due and pay for setup, installation and maintenance costs on the software as prescribed in the RTPA.
JOHN R. PIAZZA
Bethel Heights
Consider other drivers
My windshield has cracks because a street-repair guide parked me behind a big red construction truck of some kind. When he signaled us to go, the truck took off. It threw the loose gravel, etc., all over my car because it was so big and going so fast. I could not see the license plate, if it had one.
Street-repair guides should think of leaving a distance behind such vehicles, and such vehicle drivers should leave slowly and consider others.
ALICE ANN LONG
Russellville
Address security issue
The killing of four Marines and a sailor in Tennessee should invite questions about security and arming the military while they are on duty. The question should be directed at how much security is required when large numbers of people are in a certain place, and if this place is likely to invite a terrorist-type attack.
How many people must die before we do something about our security? The question is about arming the military so they can protect them themselves 24/7. This has been one of those questions that gets kicked down the road for someone else to decide.
For a soldier to arm himself without permission could be a court-martial offense. This would be a no-no. On the other hand, it doesn't take a genius to figure out that when large numbers of people accumulate at a specific location, the need for increased security exists and an armed police officer presence is required. These officers should be mingling among the crowd. Their presence has an effect on the behavior of the crowd, especially if the officers are armed and looking for terrorists, criminals and thieves. It is necessary for those officers to be observed making arrests, doing their job.
The American people have become dependent on security. They expect the various agencies of the law to be actively doing their job seven days a week, and the justice system to be enforcing the laws.
LUCIAN SIMMONS
Oil Trough
What history really is
Ron Springer's guest column, "Erasing history," seems to defend the Civil War by recounting the history of his ancestors. Catherine de Medici, through her son, the King of France, was the instigator of the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre when the streets of Paris ran with the blood of his Huguenot ancestors because they were Protestant.
However, in my opinion, it's a travesty to lump that and the other noble causes his ancestors defended with the one which was not noble nor in defense of freedom and justice--but to deny freedom and justice to an entire people.
I suppose my ancestors fought in the Civil War; my father's family came from Georgia when my grandfather was a boy, but I never heard a mention of that war. As a student of history, I find it an example of ignorance that some try to blame the North for what happened--such as "The War of Northern Aggression."
Those who still revere the Confederacy and the ugliest blot on the history of our country should do some reading and learn what history really says--what happened before Lincoln was even inaugurated, who fired the first shot (remember Fort Sumter?), who had large cities, industry with immigrant labor and extensive railroads, and who was mostly rural with plantations, slaves and poor white farmers; how wise it was to start a war?
Also, whether Lincoln initially went to war to abolish slavery or save the Union.
BARBARA FOREMAN
Siloam Springs
A self-inflicted crisis
Surely educated Arkansans must know that the demise of our quail population is self-inflicted. Surely this apocalypse raining down upon them from the heavens is of their own doing.
Things will never improve for them until they decide to make things right with their maker.
BARRY THOMAS
Fayetteville
America on its knees
I believe the foundation of all laws is, or should be, the Ten Commandments and the teachings of Jesus Christ because God is our creator and he has established right from wrong. No man has the authority to make lawful any act that is based upon sin against God, which sodomy very certainly is. "Marriage" between those of the same gender is but one of the symptoms of the plague of sin that is bringing America to its knees under a federal administration that apparently supports sodomites and supports abortionists under the guise of women's rights to their own bodies.
In spite of the threats to America by terrorist groups and aggressor nations, I believe our worst enemy is within our own borders. Sodomy, abortion, adultery; men and women living together as though married, yet not married, which is fornication; along with rampant drug and alcohol abuse, are the undoing of the American family, which is the foundation of society. As the family foundation, apart from God, crumbles, our nation collapses, and too many so-called churches are complicit because they fail to denounce the sins of their congregants.
When mothers were homemakers and fathers were breadwinners; when women and girls always dressed decently in public and did not wear what appears to be little more than their underwear to pools and beaches; when whoremongers and liars were not idolized and their names were not attached to public thoroughfares, structures and facilities; and when American presidents loved America, our nation was brightly different. Barack Obama was correct when he said, "We are no longer just a Christian nation, but a nation of many other faiths as well." If we were "just" a Christian nation, he would never have been elected. All of the preceding is my opinion and I stand by every word.
JACK MAYBERRY
Sheridan
On hometown pride
Athletic teams formerly known as the University of Arkansas at Little Rock Trojans will now be identified as the Little Rock Trojans. UALR (or should that be Little Rock?) Director of Athletics Chasse Conque said the move was to "build our identity as Little Rock's team."
This brings up a couple of questions: 1. Will UALR students no longer have to pay the $17.25 per credit hour "athletic fee?" (This totals in excess of $2,000 for a 120-hour degree.); and/or 2. Will the City of Little Rock provide the financial support for "Little Rock's team," relieving UALR of that responsibility? (Hint: Those are rhetorical questions.)
Is the name Fayetteville Razorbacks being considered? (Also a rhetorical question.)
MIKE WATTS
Little Rock
A scary proposition
If "Bewildering Bret" Bielema found the moment at the end of the game in the Hogs' victory over Texas this past season "borderline erotic," one can only wonder about his heightened state while bellying up to the dessert bar at a Golden Corral.
JOHN ZACH
Maumelle
Feedback
Meh, skip that one
Reading the heartbreaking tales of county clerks in Kentucky having to issue marriage licenses to couples who don't fit their religious beliefs makes we wonder if these beliefs are as strong when it comes to divorces and previously divorced couples.
The Bible says, "Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate." Apparently, a devoted county clerk can pick one section of the Bible and skip the others, all while ignoring the law of the public which put them in office.
H. PETER ELZER
Fayetteville
Need new symbol
What an evolution of conscience! The rebel flag is down from whence it flew in South Carolina's capital. After 1865 it never ought to have been raised again. 'Tis an obnoxious piece of threading, to say the least, and the Arkansas state flag bears a nauseating resemblance to it. Cannot some graphic artist or, better yet, little child come up with a better symbol for the Natural State?
Personally, I won't salute any flag. Rather, I prefer to salute the dictator of my own conscience.
CONSTANCE DURKIN
Fort Smith
Editorial on 07/23/2015