State employees get bonus checks

Teacher layoffs, work force cutbacks, programs slashed or even cut, all governments are cutting back on the state, county and local levels.

The state has cut funding to all education, including K-12. There just doesn’t seem to be any money for anything these days, does there? But wait — as the many ads on TV say.

There seems to be plenty of money on the state level for the governor to give a bonus to most state employees that amounts to millions of dollars. But, how can this be? There is an online list that shows bonus checks from as little as $100 to over $2,900. There are over 100 pages of such bonus awards on the indy

channel.com — go there and click on “state bonus.”

As I understand it the small checks are approved by supervisors on the local level. But the bigger checks are approved at the state level and even by the governor for the really big checks.

Too bad the local governments and education folks can’t have some extra money to work with.

I am a retired state employee now for 10 years. I was with the Department of Correction for many years. Never in all my years with them did I ever hear of anyone receiving a bonus for doing their job. There were many of us who went above the call many times without so much as a thank you, much less a huge bonus. I guess we figured we were doing our job as we were trained to do — protecting the public.

— Jack Tucker

Brazil



Drivers need to be more vigilant

I would like to respond to the recent letter on Indiana 63 South.

Mrs. Farmer was right on about the problems. My husband and I also think too many drivers are in a hurry as we see a lot of “speeders.” Also, some seem to think the speed limit is for any kind of weather or road conditions, i.e. wet, icy or snow. Also a lot pass on curves and double yellow lines frequently. Also the curves from West French Drive to Harlan Drive list “9” in number. We have seen a lot of cars slide off these and land in fields.

Drivers need to be more vigilant and watch their speed. Perhaps there would be less accidents.

— Betty and George Luken

Terre Haute



Taxpayers burdened by spending frenzy

Our nation has been plunged into so much debt the average citizen can no longer comprehend such a staggering amount and the average calculator can no longer calculate it. While America’s financial future teeters in a delicate balance for survival, Congress continues to spend and spend and spend.

Not only is the American taxpayer being pillaged to pay for congressional bills now totaling trillions, and most of which are unnecessary, many of which have never been read, and none of which we can afford, but our elected officials divert billions of more dollars into earmarks for worthless projects to promote their re-elections.

In their spending frenzy, perhaps they failed to notice the treasury was bare. This insane spending is no longer limited to Washington. On TV last week, I recall watching a state official (not our state) as he was trying to justify why he approved over $400,000 in government stimulus money to send some educators from his state to a posh California health spa. Such ridiculous waste does tend to dampen one’s enthusiasm for paying taxes.

Our Democratic Congress is still trying to pass their partisan version of health care reform with estimated costs, depending on whose predictions are correct, somewhere between billions and trillions of more borrowed dollars. While praising all the great and wonderful benefits included in their bill, which mandates enrollment for nearly all Americans, Congress has exempted themselves from participation because they do not want this affecting their health care.

They also threw in a few special perks for people they like and shaped some of the bill’s content in favor of groups making sizable political donations, like trial lawyers and labor unions. This type of behavior may be legal but it sure doesn’t pass the smell test.

Washington’s political elite, aka intellectuals educated beyond their intelligence, are confident we need more and more costly governmental programs to take care of us. They offer no apologies for the incomprehensible debt they have created and give no indication they intend to halt their spending addiction. If China starts demanding their money back, we got big trouble. But still our legislators maintain their arrogant insistence that they know what is best for us. Well, maybe not so much.

Most of us would probably agree that our current health care system certainly needs to be reformed. However, what we do not need is a bill containing more than 2,000 pages of excessive verbiage which has been deliberately compiled in both size and ambiguity to disguise its very content and conceal its political biased interests.

If Congress wants the American people’s support on health care reform, they need to go back to the drawing board and design a bill considerably reduced in both size and cost. The current bill was not only rejected by the American public because of the tremendous cost it would add to our already bloated deficit, but also due to the suspicion its voluminous size created.

The majority of our citizens expect congressional bills to be written in a fair and equitable manner. What they find unacceptable are sleazy deals concocted in back rooms that allow for certain individuals, groups, states, industries, labor unions, or other entities to be exempt from or entitled to benefits not enjoyed by the entirety.

The Constitution of the United States, inclusive of its Preamble, its seven Articles, its Bill of Rights and its 17 subsequent Amendments, can all be incorporated in less than 20 pages, so perhaps a little more frugality, simplicity and common sense could be resurrected and applied in the writing of any future bills.

“We the People” should be able to access, read, understand and afford any legislation being enacted on our behalf in order to make informed decisions and stay connected to our government. Considering our tax money pays for the salaries, benefits and offices up there on Capital Hill, Congress might want to enhance our ability to do so.

— Nancy Holden

Terre Haute



Great Mardi Gras at Swope museum

The Swope Art Museum would like to say a big thank you to everyone who attended, volunteered, donated food and invited their friends to make sure the Second Annual Swope Mardi Gras was a tremendous success.

A very special thanks to our royal court: Roy Dressler, Missy Findley, Brendan Kearns, Anne Ruark, Richard Shagley II and Neil Ward. All the candidates raised money and brought friends to support their campaigns, bringing in a collective $12,000 to support the exhibitions, programs and activities of the Swope. A special congratulations to Queen Missy Findley and King Richard Shagley II for their amazing fundraising and friend-raising.

Photographs from the evening can be found on the Swope Facebook page www.facebook.com/swopeart

museum and also on the Roxy Studio page theroxybooth.com/Events where you can order prints of photos of you and your friends. Great photos of a great party! Thank you, Roxy Studio!

See you next year.

— Brian Lee Whisenhunt

Swope Art Museum



Hoosiers won’t fall for Ellsworth’s line

On Feb. 20 you published an article about Rep. Ellsworth’s decision to run for the U.S. Senate. In the article the Associated Press made the point that Ellsworth voted against the $819B version of the Stimulus Bill before he voted for a “scaled down” $787B (now $862B) version. The AP would like us to believe that this supports the article’s theme that Ellsworth is actually a conservative.

When Ellsworth held a town hall meeting last year immediately after his vote for the Stimulus Bill, I had the opportunity to point out to him that the bill was primarily a payoff to Democrat special interests, like the government employees union, ACORN type organizations and irresponsible state and local governments; and transfer payments like student aid, unemployment extensions and refundable tax credits to people who don’t pay taxes.

I also noted that the Wall Street Journal’s analysis of the bill was that it would hinder and delay an economic recovery, not create jobs. Ellsworth gave a half-hearted defense of the bill, which included his admission that he had not even read it. After all, we all remember, we were in a crisis that required the bill to be signed overnight so that Obama could save the country from eminent collapse. As we all know now, only 23 percent ($200B) has been spent in 2009.

At Ellsworth’s town hall meeting this past week, he tried to defend his vote for the bill. Obviously, he had received the Democrat Party talking points and was duty bound to make them. He would like us to believe that the bill “saved or created” 2 million jobs and was a factor in positive GDP growth rate at the end of 2009.

The real results as reported by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and the Federal Reserve tell a dramatically different story. The CBO confirmed that 80 percent of the spending to date was in fact transfer payments (see above) which are mostly rewards for not working or at least for not working very hard.

The Federal Reserve Open Market Report for January stated that “extensions of emergency unemployment benefits have raised the measured unemployment rate by more than 1 percent” … by encouraging some who have lost their jobs to remain (as unemployed) in the labor force. The Cato Institute has estimated that the Bill added at least 2 percent to the rate.

Democrat boasting that the stimulus had something to do with the increase in the GDP is also unfounded as shown by the CBO. The GDP Report itself said “the gain reflected an increase in inventory investment, a deceleration of imports and an upturn in non-residential fixed investments that was partly offset by deceleration in Federal Defense spending and personal consumption expenditures”. Federal spending, including the Stimulus, accounted for zero of the GDP increase.

So while Ellsworth, Pelosi and Obama defend the bill with inaccurate stories, the AP tries to make Ellsworth look conservative for his meaningless no vote against an earlier version. Ellsworth can’t have it both ways and Hoosiers won’t fall for either one of these lines.

The other very sad part to this fiasco is that our children will have to pay for the nearly trillion dollar deliberate increase in the budget deficit just so these hacks could pay off their political debts. Fortunately, there is an election in November and the voters have the opportunity to install a Congress that can still stop some of this reckless spending.

— Thomas B. Tucker

Terre Haute



Thanks for support of Haiti fundraiser

The Woodrow Wilson Middle School seventh- and eighth-grade girls basketball teams partnered with Chauncey Rose in a fundraiser to raise money for Mountain Top Ministries and River of Hope Orphanage in Haiti on Feb. 11. The teams sold and wore red Hoops for Haiti T-shirts, raised donation money, and dedicated the game to those in Haiti.

The fundraiser was the idea of Michaela Schuld, a seventh-grade student and basketball player who recently completed a mission trip to Haiti with her father, Dr. Mark Schuld. Thank you so much to her and her family for their generosity and hard work to create this event.

Thank you to Mountain Top Ministries for all of the work that they do each and every day to provide much needed support to Haiti and for attending the game. Thank you to Chauncey Rose Middle School for their support of this fundraiser and to all of the Woodrow Wilson girls basketball players for their hard work in making this fundraiser successful. Thank you to the Woodrow Wilson staff and students for their support and generous donations.

Thank you to Sue Loughlin of the Tribune-Star and Channel 10 news for promoting our fundraiser and making our community aware of this great event.

Finally, a big thank you goes out to the community which made this event as successful as it was. Thank you for the donations, attending the game in your T-shirts, and all of your kind words. Our hearts go out to those in Haiti and we hope our fundraiser has made a difference.

— Jennifer Hall

Vigo County schools

Terre Haute