Dear Editor,
Gasoline is $4.29 a gallon; diesel is $5
…when will this price rise stop?
Why can’t we get back to the good old days of $1 a gallon gas
price?
Sadly, the answer is NEVER. We do not have a problem of supply
and demand. The basic problem in high gas prices is the weakness of
the U.S. dollar.
It’s our country’s huge debt that’s driving the price of fuel skyward
Dear Editor,
Gasoline is $4.29 a gallon; diesel is $5 …when will this price rise stop?
Why can’t we get back to the good old days of $1 a gallon gas price?
Sadly, the answer is NEVER. We do not have a problem of supply and demand. The basic problem in high gas prices is the weakness of the U.S. dollar.
The Unites States has a huge debt ($10.4 trillion). We run a deficit in our budget every year, adding to the national debt.
Congress spends money like a drunken sailor – the problem is the sailor spends his own money whereas Congress spends our (the taxpayers) money.
Recently Congress passed the Farm Bill; subsidizing the farmers at $535 billion, leading to another deficit in our annual budget next September.
Foreigners see our debt, deficit and spendthrift Congress and question the value of the dollar. Loss of value of the dollar has been going on in increasing amounts since President Franklin Delano Roosevelt took the U.S. off the gold standard in 1934. Silver still backed the dollar until President Nixon removed the dollar’s silver backing in 1974.
Do you remember when dimes, quarters, half-dollars, and metal dollars were silver?
Our dollar is a fiat currency, with no true value.
OPEC, the petroleum supply countries, see the dollar’s loss of value, and charge more and more for their barrels of oil to make up for the dollar’s loss. Our gasoline price rises with the barrel price of crude oil.
So you can see there will be no retreat in gas prices until there is a stable and valuable American dollar. Restoring the dollar’s value can only be done by an honest Senate and Congress. Don’t look for such a miracle in the near future.
Meanwhile, the only way to beat the game is to buy and ride a bicycle. Good luck!
J. G. McCormack, Gilroy
How about more facts and less hyperbole on $150 million bond?
Dear Editor,
When guest columnist Rhoda Bress (July 29) piously states “voters are being asked to approve $150 million in school facility bonds on Nov. 4. They deserve real facts and figures …” she highlights that’s the last thing voters will read.
Mrs. Bress conveniently fails to mention she is a member of the Gilroy Unified School District Board of Untrustables. She ignores the “real facts and figures” of GUSD’s last bond (Measure I). Actually, there have been few “real facts and figures” released providing Measure I accountability as required by state law and the state’s education code.
Will the proposed bond measure be promoted the same dishonest way of Measure I? Will the board actually be honest and open in providing detailed “real facts and figures” if the planned $150 million bond measure passes.
Don’t expect that to happen.
Mrs. Bress’s words reveal that the board’s smoke and mirrors arrogance to deceive voters is under way.
She claims:
1.) “… there is language in the proposition’s text confirming that new bond funds will be used to complete (Christopher High School).
So what?
Measure I had promises also – but since there has never been accountability (as required by state law and the education code) on that measure’s text, there is little belief the current untrustables will embrace openness and honesty.
2.) “Overcrowded classrooms affect … teachers to teach to their full ability.”
Teacher Kristen Porter, exercising her constitutional rights, chastised the board for perceived flaws. She was fired and pulled from her classroom and banished from the school ground via the lynch mob arrogance of six untrustables, an act that to this day continues to stifle every teacher’s skill to teach to their full ability.
3.) “… construction costs for CHS are $99 million … $115 million of the new funds will be used for projects never before funded …”
How Mrs. Bress can blithely spend $214 million from the proposed $150 million bond measure is one further example of how out of touch with financial reality and responsibility she remains.
4.) ” … People from all segments of our community who are rallying behind the new bond initiative for the sake of our children.”
What a shuck-and-jive. Where is all this “rallying” taking place? Who are the “people from all segments of our community.” Don’t overdo the hyperbole Mrs. Bress. Wishful thinking won’t pass a bond measure – “real facts and figures” might. When, it at all, will these be provided to Gilroy residents/taxpayers/voters?
Also, Mrs. Bress, please don’t use “our children” as pawns. Once again, to attempt sympathetic emotional voter manipulation. Try honesty instead.
5.) “This was a very focused and serious group. The Board of Education spent countless hours doing its homework.”
You just can’t provide “real facts and figures” – only this repetitive self-serving, self-adulation, of no benefit to Gilroy taxpayers.
Encourage the board to avoid the lies, duplicity and dishonor it has tainted Measure I with, Mrs. Bress. Try openness and honesty. They might come to learn something new.
James Brescoll, Gilroy
