Tax on beverages will mean layoffs
Corwin Beverage Company, which our family started in 1941, is home to 115 hard-working employees, many of whom have been with the company for decades. Starting with five trucks and four products, our great-grandparents faced a lot of uncertainly to grow the business and make it strong. I’m proud to say we have never laid off a single employee in the company’s history, despite the difficult economy and the fact our sales are down as a result. We’ve made tough decisions to ensure employees have kept their jobs and benefits.
But today, our company’s tradition and employees are in jeopardy.
If the governor’s proposed excise tax on soda and bottled water becomes law, we may be forced to eliminate well-paying jobs, even potentially close our doors. Why? Because the amount of excise taxes is more than we make in profit. The proposed 5 cent per 12 ounces tax on carbonated beverages would translate into the loss of 101 employees. And the tax on bottled water is greater than what it costs to produce the product.
In short, these taxes would cripple our company. It’s not productive to try to solve the state’s revenue shortfall by putting people out of work.
Heidi Piper Schultz
Vancouver
Camas post office is a treasure
I am sad about the announced closure of the Camas post office. One of the postal clerks often asked me about my children and shook his head in amazement when I told him the baby boy I brought in 13 years ago is now in middle school.
I stood in line there grumbling to myself the other day because I was in a hurry. I had time to stop and look around at the wonderful marble and solid-wood features. There is something special about the exterior of the building as well. It’s a brick building with beautiful white windows and a sturdy front door. Above the door are the words United States Post Office, Camas Washington, 98607. It is a solid fixture in the middle of a town that I adore.
The building won’t go anywhere, but downtown won’t feel the same if I can’t stand in line at the post office once in a while.
Jonathan Burton
Camas
Morality keeps God on our side
In his Feb. 7 column, “It takes a long time to eradicate hatred,” John Laird seems to believe that homosexuality is a right, but in Romans 1:16-32, God condemns it. It’s helpful to have the highest viewpoint concerning morality. Our Founding Fathers consulted their Savior, giving Him credit as the founding God of their nation. Not placed in the Bill of Rights was homosexuality, a point of significance since they considered all rights to have been given by God. If God condemns homosexuality and those who tolerate what He calls evil, we may see the end of the godly moral power, the strength of the greatest military machine the world has seen.
Homosexuality has no redeeming value. Insubordination is the worst offense a soldier can commit. Insubordination can lose a war. For the sake of maintaining military efficiency, it’s more important to keep the morally infirm, rather than the weak, out of uniform, because instant obedience to orders without question is the highest purpose of military training. Homosexuals are insubordinate for hiding in uniform, regardless of the policy’s wording. As a former staff sergeant of Marines, I ask: Why tolerate behavior that is inherently destructive to military success? Why turn God against us?
Timothy May
Vancouver
Voters angry with deceptive leaders
The Feb. 21 story “Murray: Anger comes from economic angst” reported that Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., attributes most of the voter anger to the economic downturn and loss of jobs.
What she and many other elected representatives fail to grasp is the voter frustration over a dysfunctional and deceptive government.
Where is the transparency that we were promised? From the White House-brokered deals with unions to the “don’t bother reading the bill, just vote on it” mentality of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, the voters have lost all faith and trust in the process of government. Instead of voting on what is right, our elected geniuses vote for what their party leaders dictate. We need to reboot our political environment. It’s not working. That is why we are angry. We want a government that works for us, not Murray’s political party.
If Murray can’t make it work with majorities in both houses and the White House, maybe the problem isn’t on the other side of the aisle. Maybe it’s her.
Dan Jensen
Ridgefield
Tea Party anger overtakes voting?
Channeling the spirits of French Revolutionist Robespierre and Communist Russian revolutionary Lenin, one of the gentle Tea Party folks rallying in Eastern Washington recently vocalized that Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., should be hanged. What, the ballot box is no longer enough to effect removal from office? If ACORN ever tried to push things even half this far, I would be very surprised.
Gerald R. Johnson
Washougal
Anti-Obama rant was short-sighted
I disagree strongly with Dave Anderson’s short-sighted rant in a Feb. 21 letter “Obama’s hypocrisy is stunning.” A single mispronounced word does not make someone a “teleprompter president.” If it did, Obama’s status as such would pale next to George W. Bush. Let Anderson live under such scrutiny for a year and see if he never — absolutely never — makes a single verbal misstep.
The comparison to Sarah Palin fails as well. Without palm notes, Palin could hardly manage more than the occasional “You betcha” between condescending winks. If asked a real question requiring both intelligence and thought, she would surely “Have to get back to ya.”
If it is solely Obama’s responsibility, for every one of our problems, to just “fix it,” as Anderson infers, it must have been Bush’s sole responsibility to just “destroy it.” Where was Anderson’s voice then? It is not President Obama whose hypocrisy is stunning.
Roy Wilson
Portland
Invoke your right for representation
Some time last year U.S. Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., made a statement during a town hall meeting that indicated if the people didn’t like members of Congress they had the right to remove them from office by electing someone else. Since Congress finds it almost impossible to act like well-educated, intelligent, reasonable people, I think we should take Frank up on his offer for the next three or four congressional elections and try to find people who can and are able to govern.
As Mark Twain said, “the only rational patriotism, is loyalty to the nation all the time, loyalty to the government when it deserves it.”
Bob Greenwald
Vancouver
