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Re: “Taxpayers face different systems,” March 25, 2008
Taxpayers deserve a faster, more straightforward refund system than the patchwork process put together by the Northern Virginia Transportation Authority to refund the unconstitutional taxes it began collecting at the start of 2008.
The NVTA could have waited two measly months while a pending Supreme Court challenge against the taxes was decided (which is exactly what the Hampton Roads Transportation Authority did), but it pushed ahead anyway. Remember, one NVTA official was quoted in The Examiner in 2007 as saying, “we would rather have to deal with refunds than give up the revenue we would not collect during that waiting period.” Are they still so sure about that?
The NVTA’s arrogance in collecting the taxes and their incompetence in refunding them are just two more reasons to shut down the unelected authority for good.
Alexandria Taxpayers United
Alexandria
Hillary wasn’t confused; she was telling a deliberate lie
Re: “Clinton’s sniper story draws fire,” March 25, 2008
It would be plausible to accept Sen. Clinton's story as simple misspoken words only if she was under sniper fire anywhere at any time. People often confuse the time and place of what they experience. Having experienced no sniper attack anywhere, the story she told was just a manufactured lie.
Public opinion polls exist as a crutch for the uninformed
Re: “Bush, Cheney are disregarding democracy,” March 24, 2008
“So?” Works for me, but Miss Melanie was “stunned” by the response of Vice President Cheney to the interrogator who presumed to enlighten him that, according to polls, two-thirds of Americans oppose the Iraq war. Would she have been reassured of the survival of our democracy if his response instead would have been something like: Well gee, I didn’t know that. The president and I will of course immediately resign, withdraw our forces and intelligence apparatus and turn over the running of the country to pollsters and the public. This is the public that Miss Melanie herself protests is “notoriously uninformed.”
So, the vice president’s sneer, smirk, disdain or whatever was more likely directed at interrogators, the biased media, subjective academics and pollsters than it was at the American public and democracy.
Polls are more destructive of democracy than anything the current administration can do. The rationale for their existence is that they are taking the pulse of the public. However, over time they have come to facilitate and encourage a lazy, misinformed or ill-informed public. That portion of the public which, for whatever reason, cannot be bothered to independently and intelligently inform themselves on the issues default to polls and go along with the crowd, with whatever or whoever is reported to be ahead in them.
Polls are supposedly based on random sampling, but they cannot accurately define the intelligence quotient of their sampling or the legitimacy of their inquiry instruments in addressing issues fairly. Yet, they profess to be scientifically based. And so, the only apt response for the vice president to make under the circumstances was: “So?”
Gainesville, Va.
Klingle Valley road isn’t worth environmental impact
Re: “Mayor approves $2M for Klingle Road revival,” March 24, 2008
As required under federal environmental law, the District Department of Transportation spent the last several years studying the environmental impacts of rebuilding a road through Klingle Valley in order to get federal matching funds. Last year, the Federal Highway Administration identified flaws in the city’s environmental analysis, and DDOT had to go back to the drawing board.
Now Mayor Adrian Fenty and [D.C.] Council Member Jim Graham seem to have concluded that they cannot justify the environmental damage rebuilding this road would cause because they are planning to circumvent these environmental protections, give up all federal matching funds and start spending $11 million in District resources, all when the District budget is essentially flat. Taxpayers should be irate. We in the Sierra Club are. The D.C. Council needs to give this project another look because any serious analysis will show that the costs far exceed the benefits of this proposed road.
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