While I agree with Jennifer Gutierrez's opinion that abortions should not need to happen, I'm not ready to make them illegal, yet.
Posted: Tuesday, September 30, 2008 7:00 pm
While I agree with Jennifer Gutierrez’s opinion (LJS, Sept. 27) that abortions should not need to happen and that all children should be welcomed into loving and nurturing homes, I’m not ready to make them illegal, yet.
It concerns me that the anti-abortion, right-to-life crowd always ends their debate with a warm and healthy child emerging from the womb. However, while they are jumping around and high-fiving each other celebrating the arrival of yet another baby in the world, I am doing some math.
Jennifer states that 700 children are aborted each year in Lancaster County. That’s one giant high school graduating class. Where will the tax dollars come from to build the massive schools these infants will one day need?
While we’re at it, they also might enjoy some parks, day-care centers and clinics. We might even want to staff them with qualified nurses and teachers.
I will make the right-to-lifers a deal. The day they finish construction on the first high school, middle school, grade school, clinic, park and day-care center and pass the massive tax increase to finance the continued construction and staffing requirements year after year after year, I will relent and cast my vote to outlaw abortion.
Paul Knopp, Lincoln
Intermill better candidate
I was one of the dozen or so in attendance at last week’s County Board debates sponsored by the Lincoln/Lancaster League of Women Voters. It is now clear to me who the better candidate is: Nancy Intermill.
Mr. Bernie Heier, her opponent, spent most of his time talking about continuing to do things the way he’s always done them. Ms. Intermill talked about her vision for more city-county coordination, a more in-depth look at undertaking large spending projects and thoughtful examination of greenbelt exemption policy, which impacts all Lancaster County residents whether they farm or not.
I was also displeased to see Mr. Heier attack Ms. Intermill by saying her support of community corrections programs would put violent criminals out on the street. That’s not the case, and she said so. Mr. Heier should be ashamed of his performance.
I hope others go to the city Web site, where they can watch the debate firsthand. They will see that the choice in this race is clear.
C.J. Zimmer, Lincoln
Right road not right choice
We are standing at the fork in the road. The left fork leads to a collapsed economy, a depression, a hard existence. The right fork leads to a socialist government. It sure looks like a simple choice: Take the right road. But is that the right choice? There’s an expression “no pain, no gain,” which truly fits here.
If we bail out the financial sector, we’ll have no pain, but we lose. Our life will be at the whim of the government. They will own everything. If we take the left road, it’ll be a hard road, but we’ll have opportunities and chances. We can rebuild this nation. It will be painful, but we have so much to gain by taking the left road.
Jo-Ann Feller, Lincoln
Huskers give hospitality
I’m a Colorado Hokie who just returned home from the Virginia Tech/Nebraska game Saturday night. It was the first home Husker game I ever had the privilege of attending, and I certainly hope to do so again.
I had heard about how great Husker fans were, and I’ll have to say they exceeded my expectations. Everywhere we went, Huskers came up to us and welcomed us to Lincoln and thanked us for coming. Hopefully, Virginia Tech can match that special Husker hospitality next year in Blacksburg. Go Big Red — beat Mizzou!
Dee Laird, Montrose, Colo.
Create incentives to lend
This bailout is for us. It should not be for these corporations. Especially corporations that prey on people. The banks that preyed on people deserve what they have coming to them. This is a classic story of greed and taking advantage of people.
Now the banks want taxpayers to buy their mortgage-backed securities and make them liquid enough to survive. This is the last bastion of the greed scenario. This is a continuation of the greed and trying to fleece people.
What we need is an incentive to lend. I am OK with helping the banks if it helps Americans. I like the idea of giving lenders insurance and guarantees of profitability if they follow prudent rules lending to people. There would be different standards/rules for different types of loans. The borrower and lender must follow the provisions to be guaranteed a certain percentage of the loans would be paid back in default. (For example, 80 cents on the dollar for credit card debt, 98 cents on the dollar for housing debt, etc. …) This would be a two- to five-year deal with it scaling back in years three, four and five. This would allow prudent lenders who got caught up in the lending frenzy a way to earn their way out of their problems.
The incentive should be geared toward lending and away from buying bad assets.
That way, we encourage the banks that have made better decisions to make good decisions going forward. If we don’t create incentives to lend, they won’t lend except to the top creditworthy clients.
Joe Slechta, Lincoln