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Better ways to pick
council replacements
I live in San Jose’s District 6. I would not want councilmembers from other districts, who were duly elected by their constituents, appointing my council person. To have somebody from another district tell us who should represent us is despicable. I fail to understand how any process could be as final as a real election.
Since Californians are willing to bear the cost of 100% mail-in ballots in addition to polling stations, it seems to me that the prevailing value is for easy and effortless representation. If cost is more important than a real election, then the previously elected council members (Sylvia Arenas and Matt Mahan) should appoint their successors.
Jennifer Thompson
San Jose
State must do better
regulating gun sellers
Law enforcement agencies all over California purchase the majority of their firearms from just two suppliers, spending over $20 million — $1 million by San Jose alone — since 2015. What makes this newsworthy is that both of the suppliers are rated well-below average by the ATF, the federal agency that regulates gun commerce, in terms of practices intended to promote public safety and prevent the flow of legal guns into the illegal market.
For failures to properly document background checks and for not reporting sales of multiple weapons to a single customer, for example, these businesses have earned numerous warning letters and follow-up meetings, which are about as punitive as the ATF gets, actual license suspensions being incredibly rare.
It is a major responsibility of government at all levels to use its power of procurement (with the taxpayers’ money) to encourage business practices that enhance rather than degrade the quality of taxpayers’ lives.
Don Veith
Coordinator, Santa Clara County Chapter of Brady United
Sunnyvale
GOP concern about
deficit disingenuous
Re. “US deficit fell to 1.4 trillion in 2022,” Page A4, Jan. 13:
The new Republican Congress will be warning you, and often, about the national debt, a political mantra they abandoned under Donald Trump. What they won’t mention is that the debt fell to $1.4 trillion down from $2.6 trillion in 2022. I have heard some representatives say that the trend is unsustainable. Which one?
The Republicans’ approach to the debt is simply a matter of convenience. They will say we need to cut, cut and cut some more. But you won’t hear them say to increase revenue by making big corporations and the rich pay their fair share. Be wary of the fearmongers, the political hype and the nay-sayers. If you can weed through all of that, you will find factual data saying we are in pretty good shape considering where we have been.
Mark Grzan
Morgan Hill
‘Mallard Fillmore’s’ appeal
to violence unacceptable
It is time for The Mercury News to join many other newspapers and dump the divisive and dangerous “Mallard Fillmore,” this time for promoting political violence with Orwellian doublespeak like this on Jan. 12: “Mallard’s New Leftist Lexicon: ‘Violence’: Any speech or action that threatens to knock over the fragile house of cards that constitutes our entire worldview.”
At a time when right-wing political violence is at an all-time high, with MAGA extremists threatening and attacking election workers, school board members, governors, Congress, and now shooting at Democratic politicians and their families in New Mexico, we do not need a MAGA “comic strip” that ignores the threat of political violence to our democracy and to our fellow citizens.
As the New York Times recently wrote: “America can have democracy or political violence. Not both.”
Bill Charleston
Campbell
GOP’s irresponsibility
drives US deficit
Re. “US hits debt ceiling prompting treasury to take extraordinary measures,” Jan. 19:
You quote “Hard-right GOP Rep.” Andy Biggs as saying “Democrats have carelessly spent our taxpayer money and devalued our currency.” Please.
For starters, it is always the Republican administrations that ratchet up the debt, and Democratic ones that bring it down again. It’s easy to see by looking at the charts available on the internet. And how about right now?
Quoting Rep. Anna Eshoo’s recent weekly report:
“The very first bill House Republicans brought up for a vote guts the budget of the IRS. My office has been inundated with constituent complaints about how the IRS system is seriously broken, underfunded, and understaffed … [A]stonishingly, the legislation would add $114 billion to the federal deficit — tax revenue that is owed to the government but would go unpaid with the IRS unable to collect it.”
The high debt is due to the irresponsibility of the Republican party. Full stop.
Miles Zarathustra
Boulder Creek
Source: www.mercurynews.com