Letters to the Editor for Feb. 22, 2010

Constitution is under duress

In response to the recent letter by Robert Heriza. Having read your letter in today’s paper I need to let you know you have a lot of people out here that agree with you and feel something needs to be done. The action may be along the line of the so-called Tea Party or something of that nature.

One of the magazines I take is “Range,” published in Nevada, and it has many articles of interest to anybody, especially people trying to make a living from any of the natural resources such as I did for 60 years. I feel our very lives as we have known them are being threatened by the actions taking place both in our state and federal governments. I have a list of things taken from this magazine that are important.

1. All people have inherent, natural, unalienable rights to life, liberty and property, in their pursuit of happiness.

2. Governments exist expressly to protect these rights.

3. Government’s power derives from the consent of the governed, and is limited to those powers enumerated in the U.S. Constitution.

4. Public policies which constrain people’s rights must be enacted only by representatives elected by the people, not by appointed agency offices.

5. Freedom requires a free market economy — with minimal government intrusion.

6. Freedom and security demand abundant, affordable energy and food production, which requires high priority utilization of domestic carbon-based and alternative fuel resources, as well as land and water resources.

7. Government has no authority to restrict or suppress nonviolent religious expression.

8. No foreign or international government shall supersede the authority of the government of the United States.

The first two articles of the Constitution have been ignored and there are many other examples where control of our country as we know it is being turned over to some world organization.                                  

Eric Romtvedt

Baker City

Consider impact

of Wal-Mart jobs

I felt a need to respond to the recent letter encouraging the City Council to focus on bringing Wal-Mart to Baker County with the specific goal of creating jobs.

While there are a ton of facts in regards to Wal-Mart’s impact on the economics of small towns, this forum will only allow for a very small sampling of those facts.

1. In a study of over 3,000 counties, researchers found that counties with presence of Wal-Mart “unequivocally raised family poverty rates in U.S. counties during the 1990s relative to places that had no such stores.” The authors hypothesize that the increase in poverty rates can partly be explained by displaced workers going to work at Wal-Mart for lower wages. (Source: “Wal-Mart and county wide poverty”)

2. The total U.S. trade deficit with China reached $235 billion in 2006. Between 2001 and 2006, this growing deficit eliminated 1.8 million U.S. jobs. U.S.-based Wal-Mart was responsible for $27 billion in U.S. imports from China in 2006 and 11 percent of the growth of the total U.S. trade deficit with China between 2001 and 2006.

Wal-Mart’s trade deficit with China alone eliminated nearly 200,000 U.S. jobs in this period. (Source: “Wal-Mart’s reliance on Chinese imports costs U.S. jobs” by Robert E. Scott). We in Baker County and we in the good old USA need to focus our efforts on stimulating our economy by getting manufacturing back in business in our country.

As we see in recall after recall, the safety of goods manufactured in China is a constant concern. As Wal-Mart continues to grow, our choice to buy American diminishes more and more. If Wal-Mart supports Chinese imports — if the GIANT pushes manufacturing to China on a commodity all retailers then buy that commodity from China — other retailers have no choice to buy American-made products, and over time we will all have ZERO chance of buying anything made in America.

Ken Krohn

Safeway manager

Baker City