posted June 9, 2006

English is enough

Thank heaven that English is the language of the United States. It certainly should be the “official” language of this country.

My family came to the United States as political refugees from Bulgaria in the late ’50s. I remember my mother saying that she was sick of being forced to learn new languages for her daily life: She had to learn German when they occupied and proceeded to destroy her native Poland; then Russian when they took over and expanded where the Germans left off; and Bulgarian when she moved there with my father.

When we immigrated here, mother said that she would learn English and that would be it, she would never move from the United States and never be forced to learn another language. Since living in this country, I have found that there are almost no Bulgarian speakers, and so it has been helpful — and essential — to be able to speak a common language, English of one sort or another, with everyone here. That required study: My parents and older sister took English-for- immigrant courses at night after work. I had to repeat the first grade.

If English were not the single “official” language of the United States, it would be impossible for immigrants assimilate into the life of their adopted country. It is hard enough to learn one new language when struggling in a new country, let alone two or more. English is certainly the richest language precisely because, like the United States, it grows from within and without, inventing, adopting, and adapting words, a great many foreign borne.
Jovi Tenev
Princeton Junction, NJ

Sending her $20 to Bernie

Recently, Bernie Sanders and Rich Tarrant were quoted on Vermont Public Radio (May 11) regarding the administration’s recent proposal for a tax cut.

VPR reported that Congressman Sanders opposed the measure because he says it’s a giveaway to rich people, and Republican U.S. Senate candidate Rich Tarrant supported the extension of these tax rate reductions because they encouraged individuals to buy and sell stock and the result has been an increase in federal revenue.

Tax cuts that help the rich or tax cuts that help the average working person? According to the Center on Budget Priorities and Policies, “reconciliation tax cuts would average $43,000 for households with income over $1 million, but only $20 for middle-income households.”

Tarrant is right about one thing — encouragement. I, too, would be encouraged to buy and sell stock if I made $1 million and received $43,000 back in tax cuts. In the meantime, I’ll take my 20 bucks and continue to support Bernie as he continues to fight for me.
Audrey Tomasi
West Burke

Speaking of taxes …

The organization Vermonters for a Fair Economy and Environmental Protection (VFEEP) recently ran two full-page ads in the Rutland Herald and Barre Montpelier Times Argus titled, “Invest in Vermont.” The ads called for fair budget and tax priorities by our state government.

Specifically, the ads called for a tax increase — but only on the wealthiest 5 percent of Vermont citizens who earn more than $125,000 a year. The revenue would be used to provide more adequate funding for health care, housing, education, and other essential public services for all Vermonters.

More than 1,000 Vermonters signed and supported these ads, and copies were sent to Gov. Douglas, Senate Pres. Pro Tem Peter Welch, and House Speaker Gaye Symington. Last year, 34 high-income Vermonters spoke out in support of just such a tax increase, saying they were willing to pay their fair share for the common good of all, especially since they had received big tax cuts over the past five years from Pres. George Bush and Congress.

The governor’s response, written by Tax Commissioner Tom Pelham, was that “higher levels of taxation will undermine our economy,” and “the likely result is that the expansions for which you advocate would absorb resources necessary to support the health and welfare benefits we currently sustain.”

As secretary of the board of directors for VFEEP, I’d like to respond. While this certainly would be an unacceptable result, it does not seem a likely one to us. Additionally, Pelham’s comments seem to imply that the levels we currently sustain are adequate and will continue to be so.

But looking ahead, due to chronic underfunding, several programs that currently seem healthy will suffer in the near future. For instance, we face a $100 million shortfall in Medicaid next year, and it’s uncertain how to meet our mandated commitment to full funding of our teachers’ retirement plan.

Fewer of the tax dollars we send to Washington are coming back to us to help meet the needs of our people. According to the Urban Institute-Brookings Institution Tax Policy Center, the tax bill passed recently in Congress will yield 87 percent of the benefits to the 14 percent of households earning above $100,000 a year; 22 percent of the benefits will go to the richest two-tenths of one percent of U.S. households earning more than $1 million a year.

Our call to raise taxes on the best-off 5 percent is not one made lightly or without precedent. Other states have already moved in this direction. New Jersey and North Carolina have passed “millionaires taxes” in recent years, avoiding budget cuts in their public services, while at the same time reducing the burden of property taxes. In 2004, California passed a referendum that mandated a surtax on those taxpayers with annual income over $1 million, and the funds were targeted at expanding community mental health services statewide.

When looking around our communities and all of Vermont, we see great work by dedicated people trying to make the lives of children, elders, low-income people, and everyone better, as well as protecting the environment. But we think we could and should be doing so much more.

If you think so too, contact us (387-5127, svfeep@sover.net, or vfeep.org) to sign our statewide petition calling for fair budget and tax priorities that will strengthen our economy by raising the revenue required to meet the urgent needs of our people and our state.
Heather Taylor
Putney

Taxes, continued

Such groups as RU12?, Outright Vermont, and the Coalition for a Tobacco Free Vermont have been running an ad urging us to help their campaign for an 81-cent tax increase on tobacco. The ad pisses me off mightily on several counts.

It shows a man, implicitly gay, and the headline reads, “Isn’t his life worth 81 cents?” The copy begins: “Smoking rates among queer Vermonters are sometimes as much as two times higher than heterosexual Vermonters.” That not very logical sentence — and what does “sometimes” mean in this context? — is pure extortion, an extortion that calls for us to feel superior to them.

The ad clearly suggests anyone not in agreement with the tax increase must be anti-gay. Screw that logic. It’s a sanctimonious version of the famous National Lampoon cover from the ’70s showing a gun pointed at the head of an afraid-looking mutt, with the headline, “Buy this magazine or we’ll shoot this dog.”

That was funny. This isn’t. You want me to pay 81 cents — that’s OK. I’ve paid hundreds of dollars and more directly to people who went off cigarettes for a year. And I’ve been off the nasty killers for over 30 years, and I damn every one of those evil weeds I corrupted my lungs with. But the campaign behind the ad wants us to encourage state senators, etc., to put the onus and the cost on the very victims of years of pro-tobacco propaganda. Cigarettes, I understand, can now cost $6-8 a pack. That’s disincentive enough, for crysake. Charge “them” 81 cents a pack more? Yes, some (an undefined number) may quit, and perhaps some may steal to be able to afford tobacco. Either possibility could happen, if tobacco is indeed more addictive than heroin.

Why not, to help the environment, further call on us to pay additional taxes for gasoline, for no apparent reason about to break the $3 a gallon price before summer arrives? Oh, that’s right, they’re already planning to shaft us with that tax. Both tobacco and gasoline have become necessities for many people, so let’s make them, and everyone else, suffer. I hate this hypocritical “logic.”

People have been tapped out with taxes, though the rich certainly deserve more and more breaks — haven’t you noticed, you idiot, how we’re all doing so much better since the rich have gotten their million-dollar tax breaks? Instead of running these fallacious ads, how about some informative ones on who’s doing the screwing around here? Or is that subject taboo?
Jerry Weinberg
Burlington

Rumor-based veto

The cancellation of the June 1 vote to override Gov. Douglas’ veto of the Farmer Protection Act may be a blessing in disguise, causing us to look at the issue in broader terms. Rather than showing division between farmers, this bill has pointed out a great commonality. Whether big or small, organic or conventional, dairy or vegetable, all Vermont farmers understand that they are indentured to the interests of major corporations like Monsanto who benefited most from his veto.

The farmers who were opposed to the bill based their opposition on the fear that, when made to take responsibility for their product, genetically modified (GM) seed manufacturers would not be willing to sell in Vermont. The governor used this rumor as the basis for his veto, despite a statement to the contrary from the industry spokesperson herself. Since there was no official threat, the biotech industry needed only to plant the rumor of a threat to get the hardworking farmers of Vermont who use GM seed to put on their green hats and fight their battle for them. The power that the industry wields over these farmers has never been clearer.

Even if this bill had passed, it would only have altered the playing field on which a Vermont farmer could do battle with Monsanto in the courts. The contamination will have already occurred and this farmer faces an endless court battle against Monsanto, its team of corporate lawyers, and its infinite resources.

We, the people of Vermont, need to first address the question of who should wield power in a democracy, the few or the many. If seed manufacturers can prevent the passage of law merely with the rumor of a threat, then they have usurped our authority to govern ourselves. Change begins with the acceptance that we are not currently self-governing, the knowledge that we are capable as citizens to make the decisions that affect our lives, and the courage to accept nothing less than real democracy.
Rick Scharf
Waterbury

Tarrant “Tuttled”

Back in 1998, Fred Tuttle ran in the Republican primary against Jack McMullen. In a debate, Tuttle asked McMullen how to pronounce the names of several Vermont towns, and McMullen failed. Tuttle asked McMullen, “How many teats a Holstein got?” McMullen answered six. If someone hasn’t coined the term already, I think a good word for when someone asks a simple question about Vermont to an outsider candidate for Vermont office would be “Tuttled.” As in — Jack McMullen got Tuttled in that debate in 1998.

Rich Tarrant was Tuttled at a recent press conference. Tarrant announced that he’d received the support of Lola Aiken, George Aiken’s widow. Tarrant claimed that George Aiken was one of his personal heroes. Strong language. As the Times Argus reported, Tarrant failed to answer when someone asked him to name a piece of legislation that Aiken helped author or pass. Tarrant was Tuttled. He’s trying to paint himself as a moderate in Aiken’s mold, but in reality he’s grasping for a piece of Aiken’s legacy so that he can get himself elected, or at least pull his struggling campaign up from the floor.

Tarrant is no moderate, and he will never share his breakfast table with any Democrat. Tarrant’s record of campaign contributions to radical Republican causes shows that. All one needs to do is go to the Federal Election Commission website and search for Rich Tarrant to see that Tarrant is no moderate. He’s no George Aiken. He’s not even close, and we’ll continue to see that as he Tuttles himself for the rest of this summer.
Josh O’Hara
South Royalton

All too pampered

Barbara Siegel’s letter concerning Vermont teachers (June 2) is indeed only too true. All too pampered they are after receiving a contract and the union support.

The average Vermont teacher — given the actual work they do, qualifications they have, and results they bring — are quite frankly, way overpaid now.

If, indeed, they do not wish to work in a system that gives them paid holidays and the equivalent of $300-400 for each actual day they teach, they are free to do something else.

The rate of educational school costs while quality and student numbers decline is not economically sustainable. I might also add that teachers after 30 years have a retirement package that every taxpayer would covet.
Gary Davis
Inman, SC