ASHLAND —
2nd Amendment not about hunting
The Second Amendment was put in the United States Constitution to protect the God-given rights of American citizens from the prospect of a one day tyrannical government. The Second Amendment has nothing to do with protecting the rights of hunters.
Why do we tolerate President Obama and his administration to arm dubious rebels in foreign lands with assault weapons to fight their governments while the United States government is intent on taking these kinds of weapons away from law-abiding citizens in this country?
Some of the new laws being pushed in Congress and by President Obama with his executive orders would require our local police to confiscate certain firearms from law-abiding citizens right here in America.
As Patrick Henry proclaimed: “Are we at last brought to such a humiliating and debasing degradation, that we cannot be trusted with arms for our own defense? Where is the difference between having our arms in our own possession and under our own direction, than having them under the management of Congress? If our defense be the real object of having those arms, in whose hands can they be trusted with more propriety, or equal safety to us, as in our own hands?”
James Kunkel, Warsaw
30 percent tax rate looks good
The Fair Tax Act proposes a tax on all new merchandise and services in place of all income taxes, payroll taxes, corporation taxes and taxes on dividends, interest, and capital gains. Critics of the act, which proposes a 23 percent inclusive tax, have confused the issue by saying that this law is in reality a 30 percent tax. To clear up this misinformation, consider the following explanation.
The 23 percent tax is included in the stated price of each item or service. Thus for a $100 item, $23 goes for taxes, and the remaining $77 pays the cost of the item.
This is the same as saying that if you are in the 25 percent income tax bracket for every $100 you earn, $25 goes for taxes and you keep $75. On the other hand if you divide $23 by $77 you come up with a 30 percent tax, but to be fair, your income tax rate by this same method would be calculated by dividing $25 by $75, which is 33 percent. And if you add in your $7.65 payroll tax for social security, you now pay $32.65 and keep $67.35, which is really a 48.5 percent tax. Thus the 30 percent Fair Tax rate looks good.
Patrick R. Burkett, Bend, Ore.
Letters invited
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In Your View
Letters to the editor
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Resentencing
The U.S. District Court of Appeals has rightly ruled that even those sentenced for crack cocaine violations before the approval of a 2010 law that restored a bit of sanity and fairness to federal sentencing laws can be resentenced under the 2010 law.
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It's the law
On Jan. 22, Greenup County voters — or at least those who took time to cast ballots in the special referendum — rejected a proposal that would have allowed the legal sale of alcohol in the county by a rather convincing margin of 4,872-3,830.
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In Your View
Letters to the editor
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Retiring
As members of the Ashland Board of City Commissioners look for a replacement for retiring City Manager Stephen W. Corbitt, they should seek someone just like Corbitt.
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In Your View
Letters to the editor
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On the increase
It’s certainly good news that a new report by Kentucky’s Tourism, Arts and Heritage Cabinet has found the economic impact of tourism grew by 5.2 percent in eastern Kentucky in 2012, outpacing the overall statewide growth rate. However, we would be more excited bout the report if we had more confidence in how tourism spending is calculated by state government.
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After the crash
Like thousands of other Kentuckians, we remember well May 14, 1988, when a drunken driver traveling the wrong way on Interstate 71 near Carrollton struck a church bus returning home to Radcliff after day at King’s Island, causing one of he most deadly vehicle accidents in this nation’s history. The horrific crash killed 27, many of them teenagers, and injured 34 others.
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High price tage
Much has been said and written about the rapid and dramatic decline of air passenger service at the Cincinnati-Northern Kentucky International Airport. Much less has been said and written about the tremendous economic impact the loss of air service has had on the entire region.
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Return of pencils
It is a question asked by all of us whose lives and jobs are dependent on computers with email and Internet access, fax machines, cellphones and other other electronic essentials of this modern age: What do you do when the electronic devices fail?
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In Your View
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