Responsibility is the key

A recent N.Y. Times article reported on another round of student loan forgiveness in defiance of our Supreme Court.

Why doesn’t this so-called journalist report the news factually. “Biden cancels millions in debt” should be more accurately reported as President Biden transfers millions of legitimate debt of those who agreed to the terms to those who are completely outside the realm of responsibility (taxpayers, many of whom have paid off their student loans). Responsibility is the key word! Does the president wish to teach young Americans responsibility is subjective?

Perhaps the better approach is to put the brakes on unchecked tuition funding more salaries and programs rather than education. Too many so-called student loans often pay for spring break vacations and bar tabs during four-year degree programs stretched out over 5, 6 years or more years divided between partying and some education.

The system is out of control and needs to be reeled in. Teaching our young there is no accountability is counterproductive at best! Our states need to engage, and dive deep into the true cost of their universities. Cap that cost instead of whatever school loans will fund. Loans must follow commensurately. Maybe administration and/or programs need to be cut but it would be for the greater good! Target tuition towards education, period!

Paul Gremse

Denver

Fraud in worker’s comp

After reading your article about the two Denver DA candidates I am curious if they both promise to prosecute employer fraud in worker’s comp against disabled claimants, because that is the job of the Denver DA, and Beth McCann never did it.

When fraud is not prosecuted, it makes it legal. Colorado has a very high number of brain injured people in our prisons, which accounted for 96% of the solitary confinement numbers in the Austin Sparkman prison study, which noted our state used solitary at a rate seven times the national average, with dramatic increases in mentally ill inmates during specific years. I think it was the same period when Pinnacol Assurance bragged in print ads it improved its rates by 50%. McCann loaned several attorneys to John Walsh’s office to prosecute gun crimes in federal court, but did not have time to even look at the evidence of a multi-billion dollar corporation committing fraud while administrative law judges assisted. Mitch Morrissey was the same.

This spells a denial of equal protection of the laws, especially when you note there is no ADA accommodation in worker’s comp, and many brain injured people cannot hire legal representation at all. This does not serve the public’s best interests. And “cost containment” that only calculates what insurance companies want to hear is ignoring that dumping disabled people into our prisons and homelessness is paid for by the public. That’s the exact opposite of what the Colorado Worker’s Compensation Act was meant to do.

Solitary costs twice what the regular incarceration costs, and Colorado released 1,500 from solitary, which must be a whopping number for cost. So how about asking these two?

Paula Rhoads

Denver

Think of the extra costs

This is in response to The articles about “District votes push back rail line ballot initiative”. What a waste of our tax payer money! The district is spending millions of our dollars to study a rail line from Pueblo to Fort Collins. No community on the Front Range, hmmm maybe Denver, has any infrastructure to move people from a station to anywhere close to their home or destination.

The “Bustang” and Denver light rail are a disaster; practically no one is riding them, and yet they are being funding by our tax payer funds! Please think of the extra costs: for example who’s going to build the covered garages for their cars for hail protection and heating with our summer sun’s heat? Your tax payer money is who. This is a boondoggle!

Bill Clewe

Monument

Crucial legislation

Congress is working on the long-delayed Farm Bill. This is a huge piece of legislation that identifies national agricultural priorities and reaffirms the responsibilities of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).

Please write to your representatives now and urge them to vote for a Farm Bill with the one exclusion and four inclusions.

Let’s begin with the exclusion. The “Ending Agricultural Trade Suppression Act” will nullify any state laws impacting agriculture in other states. Existing bans on cruel farming practices, including pig gestation crates and battery cages for egg-laying hens, could be undone if this passes. Laws related to food safety, environmental standards and puppy mills may be at risk. We need to keep this dangerous provision out of the Farm Bill!

A bill that must be included is “Goldie’s Act”. This Act will ensure that the USDA is protecting animals in federally regulated animal businesses like puppy mills and zoos. Goldie was a real dog who, through excessive breeding and utmost neglect, had to be put down even though the USDA had seen her suffering many times through inspections.

The “Farm System Reform Act” would phase out factory farms by curbing the expansion of large-scale Feeding Operations. It would also provide federal support to help farmers transition away from factory farming to higher-welfare production systems.

The “Industrial Agriculture Accountability Act” offers solutions to farm animal cruelty caused by factory farming. It would help to prevent cruel, large-scale “depopulation” of millions of animals – often done by gassing the animals in a confined building.

The “Save Americas Forgotten Equines Act” would ban the slaughter horses for meat. Without this federal ban, we are dooming tens of thousands of equines to unnecessary and inhumane deaths. Our precious animals cannot speak for themselves, but we can stand up for them.

Cara Camping

Pine