Make sure gas tax money is targeted
According to the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), "the classification of a bridge as structurally deficient (SD) does not imply that it is likely to collapse or that it is unsafe. [I]f the bridge is determined to be unsafe, it must be closed."
The vast majority of SD bridges are owned by the Army, Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Forest Service. The average daily traffic using these structures is less than about 4 percent of total traffic. An SD bridge not rated to carry legal loads must be posted with weight restrictions. Have you driven over a posted bridge lately?
Currently only 65 percent of the dollars collected for the construction/maintenance of roads and bridges goes to that specific purpose (FHWA). If we must raise taxes, demand that 100 percent goes to only construction/maintenance of roads and bridges.
The percent of current funding going for other purposes must not go beyond the 35 percent being spent. I would like to see that 35 percent reduced, but that is improbable, because if a government program is started, it never goes away.
Do not agree to a tax increase without including in the bill these restrictions.
JACK N. CALLAHAN, Cleveland, Tenn.
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Education is no laughing matter
Ron Hart assails President Obama's proposal to pay for two-year college tuition. Hart, a "humorist" and a libertarian, has trouble with facts. He casually mentions a "Pew study" in which "57 percent of parents say higher education no longer provides value "
The Pew Research Center, however, shows 91 percent of college graduates believe higher education will pay off, that graduates continue to outearn those with only a high school diploma and that the earnings gap has widened.
Hart's real problem is with the suggestion that government may pay for it: "Why should taxpayers further support a costly, government-run education system that has failed us?"
If it has failed, and that is by no means clear, much of the responsibility must be borne by state governments that have dramatically reduced support for public higher education and raised tuition at rates exceeding the Consumer Price Index.
But Hart does not see a problem. Instead, he asserts: "Resourceful folks can pay for college. The London Mail reported on an online site called 'Sponsor a Scholar,' where older men give college grants and aid to young women in exchange for sex."
Hart is, after all, a humorist. Are you laughing yet?
I.M. RESNICK
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Greatest scientist also God advocate
A recent letter writer knows Isaac Newton's name but nothing else. By universal agreement, Newton is the greatest scientist and mathematician in the history of the world and the greatest advocate of God as creator.
He devoted more time to the study of the prophetic books of the Bible (Daniel and Revelation) than to all of his scientific studies. He read the Bible daily and wrote over a million words regarding his study of it.
In describing the orderliness of nature, the design of animals and the instincts of animals and insects, he said, "This can be the effect of nothing else than the wisdom and skill of a powerful ever-loving agent who is more able by his will to move the bodies within his boundless uniform sensorium than we are by our will to move the parts of our own bodies." As for the Bible, its author is God himself.
The letter writer asks, "How creative a scientist can you be if you let your research be confused by a religious book?" Newton answers, referring to his invention of calculus, that "it occurred to me one day as I was riding my horse down to London Town."
JACK PARNELL, Collegedale