Commuters will avoid O’Malley’s gas tax hike Re: “O’Malley wants new 6% sales tax on gas,” Jan. 31
Apparently, Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley does not know the geography of his own state.
Maryland is a small state that borders Pennsylvania, Delaware, West Virginia, Virginia and Washington, D.C. Commuters can easily fill up their gas tanks in any of these border states to avoid the governor’s proposed 6 percent tax increase. This will cost Maryland even more in lost revenue because the state will not only lose O’Malley’s 6 percent tax increase, it will also lose the 23 cents it currently collects on each gallon.
I’m sure the governor has not fully analyzed the law of unintended consequences. Each time the looters try to take more money from the producers to give to the moochers (or waste on their bloated budgets), the producers find a way to avoid the penalty.
A better idea is to remove these feckless regulations of commerce, which create nothing more than barriers to entry and provide no real benefit or consumer protection.
Jeff Underwood
Simpsonville, Md.
DCPS should tap retired science, math teachers
Re: “Science education standards in D.C. top the nation,” Jan. 31.
The District has the resources to implement its blueprint standards for what science education should look like, but has not done so. There are many talented ex-teachers who live in the Washington Metropolitan area who would be happy to help the District out in math and science.
Therefore, I suggest that D.C. Public Schools develop a computer database to request and save resumes. This, I believe, would be a useful tool to use to implement its blueprint curriculum and teaching practices.
Cargill Kelly
Manassas
Smokey is the Forest Service’s mascot
Re: “National Park Service damaged by Occupy flip-flop,” Local Editorial, Jan. 31
The National Park Service may well have been damaged by its Occupy flip-flop, as your commentary in Tuesday’s edition of The Washington Examiner states, but your own credibility also took a beating when you said this was a “public relations disaster for an agency more associated in the public mind with Smokey the Bear.”
Smokey is an iconic mascot for the U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service, not the Park Service, and “Smokey the Bear” is the children’s song that helped make him famous.
D.T. Wells
Falls Church
Social Security contributions add up
Re: “How the left got Americans hooked on welfare,” Jan. 25
David Freddoso is wrong on Social Security. If I contributed $65,000 during 40 years of work, then even with CDs averaging 3 percent during that time, I would have earned more than $174,000 in return.
An annuity for that amount would pay me at least the same that the government pays for Medicare now.
Alexander Kortiak
Arlington
