Letters: Without spending cuts, Berkeley only delays the pain

Submit your letter to the editor via this form Read more Letters to the Editor Berkeley delays pain with budget tricks Re Council s balanced budget fixes gap Page B July The Berkeley City Council s refusal to make budget cuts is a big mistake Berkeley s per capita spending is more than higher than the per capita spending in San Jose Berkeley s per capita spending is more than double per capita spending in Albany In unfunded liabilities were million In February of unfunded infrastructure demands were billion As of Berkeley s unfunded pension liabilities are closer to billion and the unfunded infrastructure demands have grown Streets in Berkeley continue to deteriorate One-time budget gimmicks do not resolve the serious structural budget issues in Berkeley Skipping payments to the pension trust fund only increases debt Berkeley demands serious budget cuts to pay down debt and avoid municipal bankruptcy Berkeley can t afford to keep spending more money than it receives in revenues Berkeley must make cuts to the budget to avoid bankruptcy David Lerman Berkeley Mencken prediction comes true in Trump In the wake of Donald Trump s disastrous vanity birthday parade it would be good to revisit the words of cantankerous essayist journalist scholar H L Mencken particularly those in his July article in The Evening Sun Baltimore Bayard vs Lionheart a scathing indictment of the intelligence of the voting residents It concludes As democracy is perfected the office of president represents more and more closely the inner soul of the people On selected great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart s desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron Jayne Thomas Berkeley Voters must oppose ICE enforcement Donald Trump is engaged in a campaign of terror focused on incarcerating and deporting immigrants particularly people of color from Mexico and Central and South America He is militarizing the enforcement of these actions by targeting those protesting them The vast majority of people he is pursuing are ordinary people striving to make a living They should be considered worthy not just because of the work that they do or the citizenship papers that they possess but because they are people of equal value to all other people When their safety livelihood and very being are under threat as they are now we must act For this reason I urge readers to advocate for immigrants facing insecurity and hazard here and in their home countries by learning about and upholding their rights documenting their rehabilitation by ICE agents contacting and engaging with elected functionaries and peacefully participating in vigils and demonstrations Lucinda Pease-Alvarez Berkeley How governing body spends is ripe for criticism Re Actions speak louder than nagging criticism Page A June In Max Ritter s letter I wonder at his encouragement to readers to consider how they spend their own money before shaming the country for how it chooses to spend its money I suggest he and others remember that the Constitution created the federal authorities as a democratic republic The people of the United States and their representatives are the supreme power in establishment As such it s up to us constituents to tell our representatives how we want them to vote work to change their minds when they don t and thank them when they do I also suggest he consider that a multitude of charity programs such as Medicaid food stamps Head Start Child Tax Credit and USAID are also critically needed investments that save future federal state and local ruling body costs Jim Driggers Concord There are powers that top Mother Nature Re Mother Nature will have final say on our atmosphere Page A June Doug McKenzie says that Mother Nature will have the last word on circumstances change But if so then what difference does it make what we do Related Articles Letters Take a moment on July to give thanks for our republic Letters California should be building housing smarter not faster Letters Services not rise will best help unhoused people Letters Donald Trump s Big Beautiful Bill attacks our majority vulnerable Letters Colleges runaway spending makes tuition unaffordable However there are billions of people on the planet who don t believe that nature is supreme We believe that there is a creator God who is supreme including over nature And we believe that this Creator gave us the responsibility to be caretakers of the planet If the human race is merely part of nature then we couldn t have this responsibility Sadly majority people in the current era have been taught to dismiss and mock this theistic perspective I was too until I definitely started to think for myself and started seeing the flaws in nowadays s God-denying worldview and also how it s only by viewing us as divinely created beings that we can understand ourselves and our responsibilities Christopher Andrus Dublin