Wednesday’s Letters to the Editor

Where is O’Brien?

EDITOR: In the closing days of the Trump administration, a key official seems to be absent without leave. National security adviser Robert O’Brien should be front and center on several important matters. Russian hacking is a major threat to our country per Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. Donald Trump says it’s China. O’Brien says nothing. Michael Flynn talks martial law to Trump. What says O’Brien? Nothing. Instead, O’Brien attempted to take an extended family European vacation at taxpayer expense, until it was revealed.

Reportedly, O’Brien told Trump in January that COVID was a national security threat, yet where has he been in helping to contain the virus? Is he unwilling to contradict his boss with COVID reality?

National security adviser is an extremely important position requiring an active, engaged person, not a placeholder who disappears during a crisis.

ROBERT FAUX

Santa Rosa

Farcical relief plan

EDITOR: Thank you, Congress, for once again taking care of the American citizens. Wow, $600 each. Does anyone think that money will make a rent or mortgage payment or a car payment or put food on the table? Once again, Congress let us down. Truckloads of money for foreign countries, millions for the Kennedy Center, Smithsonian, National Art Gallery, national endowments for the arts and humanities and a bunch of other panhandling freeloaders.

Did anyone in the House or Senate actually read the stimulus bill? Probably not. It was 5,000 pages long with no pictures or drawings. But I bet they could have read part of it while standing in line to get the COVID vaccine.

These people need to do some real soul searching. Because this is a farce. To be done right it needed people to have a soul. Obviously, they don’t. How they keep getting elected over and over, I don’t understand.

ART HACKWORTH

Petaluma

Get the rest of the story

EDITOR: The article about the sentencing of Katie Smith by Judge Clayton Brennan in Mendocino County for shooting Thunder the Wonder Dog does a grave disservice to professional journalism (“Woman who shot dog gets no jail time,” Dec. 18). The story only covered the angry calls for punishment by the prosecution and the public, as if there were no other relevant information that needs consideration.

The story didn’t address the circumstances around the shooting, why the defendant did it, the public defender’s sentencing arguments or the judge’s reasons for his ruling. If we had this information, perhaps the ruling would make sense.

Brennan is on record as embracing the principles of restorative justice. He may have thought the defendant was a good candidate for this approach — that spending time at the Humane Society, so she might learn compassion and become a better person, was a better outcome than turning her into a bitter, hardened person, as three years in prison quite possibly would do.

This could be a great story, but without a good follow-up article covering all this, we will never know.

HUGH HELM

Santa Rosa

Declining tax rates

EDITOR: Bill Munselle’s letter focuses blame on elected representatives for more taxes (“More new taxes,” Dec. 18). On the surface this is accurate. However, current representatives didn’t create the funding problems for schools, communities, the environment and so on.

Current funding problems can be traced to the Ronald Reagan years when Congress shifted the tax burden from corporations and the wealthy to the middle class.

Throughout the 1950s and ’60s the highest federal marginal corporate income tax was 50% or so. During this same time, the highest marginal personal income tax was around 90%. America experienced its greatest period of economic expansion during these years.

The highest marginal tax rate is what you pay when you’re at the uppermost end of the income scale. A corporation now pays 21% on profits. Prior to 2017, that was about 35%. For a couple in 2020, income taxed at the highest marginal rate is that over $628,000. Currently, this couple would pay 37% above that amount in taxes.

Our schools and roads are underfunded because our tax systems privilege the wealthy.

To address the problems Munselle lists, we need to reinstate marginal tax rates as they were in the ’50s and ’60s, the good old days.

JEFFREY J. OLSON

Santa Rosa

Undermining democracy

EDITOR: What do Ken Calvert, Doug LaMalfa, Tom McClintock and Kevin McCarthy have in common? They are the California Republican congressman who supported Texas’ effort to invalidate the election results in four states won by President-elect Joe Biden. The Supreme Court quickly dismissed the lawsuit, which has been called an attempt to undermine our system of government. Biden called it extreme, stunning and a refusal to honor our Constitution.

History will judge this action. Does your paper have an opinion on this event? Is to be silent to be complicit? Please, write an editorial. Also, print the names and states of the 126 congressman who supported the lawsuit.

Actions have consequences. What you have to say is important.

LARRY WAGNER

Sebastopol

You can send letters to the editor to letters@pressdemocrat.com.