Letters: Road repairs, taxes, Oroville Dam, press

Tax big trucks for road repairs

Re “Taxes on the table as road funding intensifies” (Insight, Feb. 27): I keep reading articles about the condition of our roads in California. For anyone who pays attention to where the damage is, it is the right-hand lanes the truck companies use. I have not read articles correlating the destruction of our roads with the increase in weight big rigs are allowed to carry. Passenger vehicles have gotten lighter. Make those who wreck the roads pay for the damage.

Where will the money go?

Apparently the Legislature and governor are going to solve our infrastructure problems with new taxes on gas and auto registration. It seems to me that I have heard this tale before. Over the last 60 or 70 years there have been several similar proposals that limited the revenue to roads and infrastructure, but somehow the money found its way to the general fund. Are we to believe that this will not happen to these new funds?

Currently, our roads, bridges, dams and levees are in horrible condition and need immediate attention. The bullet train and the Delta tunnels projects should be set aside until our current infrastructure problems are corrected.

Brown comes back to earth

He can leap over two terms of crumbling infrastructure in a single bound. He can build a speeding bullet train to nowhere. Who is this unmasked marvel? None other than Gov. Jerry Brown.

The dams are breaking, the roads are crumbling, the levees are leaking, the valleys are flooding, and suddenly it is Brown to the rescue. The governor says we need more spending.

Well, governor, what did you do with all the tax money you received already? We are a high-tax state, but where has all the money gone. Only after things fall apart is Brown beaming back to earth and running to get out in front of the parade to kick the can down the road.

Tax tires instead

It seems to me that taxing gas for road maintenance has problems in this era of electric and hybrid cars. The gas tax does not equate to road use. A better tax would be on tires. Every vehicle on the road needs them and their use equates to road use. Such taxes could even vary according to the possible road wear each kind does.

I do not support eliminating gas taxes. They are needed to keep our air clean and keep gas alternates available.

News media is not the enemy

Re “Trump’s attack on press, the public” (Editorial, Feb. 25): As a former journalist and current local elected official, I know that the news media is not the “enemy” as President Donald Trump asserts. Ignorance is the enemy of our American democracy.

I am angry and afraid because I see the president actively sowing ignorance and, now, apparently, actively impeding the truth, by lying and interfering with the media, the Congress and the FBI. His connections to Russia and Vladimir Putin deserve a full and unbiased vetting, not the obfuscation that is his stock in trade.

There is really fake news

Fake news isn’t always about what is said; sometimes it’s what isn’t said.

The editorial accuses President Donald Trump’s press secretary of denying the press access because of negative stories, but didn’t say that he has said there should be negative press against him as long as it’s true.

I might have missed it, but I never read in The Bee about Barack Obama slamming Fox News, when it said negative things about him. I never saw the Bee defend the conservative media that weren’t allowed on Obama’s plane.

The press is the enemy of the American people if it doesn’t print the truth. Too many people only get their news from one source. If that source is making things up, or leaving things out, because it’s someone that’s on their side, it’s bad for America.

Free press is crucial

President Donald Trump repeats that the press is the “enemy of the people.” When a message is repeated often enough the brain begins to recognize it as “truth,” even when it isn’t.

This attempt to control the press is a threat to our First Amendment. A free press is the first defense against dictatorship. The press is not my enemy; it is my source of information against a potential threat of misplaced power.

Democracy is falling

The attack on our free and constitutional press by the Trump administration shows just how far our democracy has fallen since he took power. While the administration hasn’t destroyed our free press, it has severely silenced it. Like the silencing of Sen. Elizabeth Warren, however, this un-American activity will only serve to make the protests of the people even larger and louder.

More importantly however, is how the press reacts to this abandonment of America’s basic freedoms. With our press reporting the story coming out of the Trump presidency, at least we have a chance at the truth. We need our free press now, more than ever before.

Boycott press briefings

Re “White House handpicks media for briefing” (Page 1A, Feb. 25): Perhaps the media, as a whole, should boycott the “so-called” briefings in support of their fellow journalists.

Let him talk (lie?) to the wall.

This story was originally published February 28, 2017 at 12:05 PM with the headline "Letters: Road repairs, taxes, Oroville Dam, press."