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Your View - letters to the editor
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Gov. Hoeven, for sake of ND, please stay put |
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Thursday, 02 July 2009 |
By Lisa Cook
Fargo, N.D.
Gov. John Hoeven has announced that he will wait until September to decide whether to challenge Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., for his U.S. Senate seat.
What’s to consider? This one should be a no-brainer: Let’s keep Hoeven and Dorgan right where they are.
I can understand that the governor would want to run for the Senate, but now is not the time.
The Republican chairman says if Hoeven ran our state, we would get an ugly political campaign that could cost $20 million. I don’t think North Dakotans want to see that. North Dakota has too much at stake right now to be playing musical chairs with our elected officials.
Sen. Dorgan has done a great job in the Senate, and he has worked his way up to a position of respect that has given our state a lot of influence in Congress. His top position on the Senate Energy Committee and chairmanship of a key subcommittee that funds energy and water projects is too important to the state of North Dakota to risk losing.
As our state tries to grow its energy industry and protect our communities from flooding, nothing will be as important as having Dorgan in the Senate. A freshman member who has little or no clout on these issues is not in the best interest of North Dakota.
Governor, on behalf of everyone who cares about the future of North Dakota, I ask you to please put personal ambition aside for now and do what’s right for our state.
Leave our elected leaders, including you, right where they are. |
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Hoeven’s considering Senate is good news |
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Wednesday, 01 July 2009 |
By Dwight Grotberg
Sanborn, N.D.
The news that Gov. John Hoeven will decide by September whether he’s running for the U.S. Senate in 2010 against Sen. Byron Dorgan is good news.
In 2006, I ran unopposed at the North Dakota Republican Convention and received the nomination for the U.S. Senate. I was amazed by the lack of challengers for this honorable position.
Leading up to that convention, I kept expecting someone else to throw their hat in the ring. Surely there must be someone, I thought. There wasn’t. I did not want to lose, but the thought of not running against the liberal Sen. Kent Conrad when no one else was willing to take on the task was enough for me. Conservative beliefs presented well will beat liberals’ ideologies every time. Therein lies the problem: presenting conservative, Republican beliefs well.
When you are running against a 20-year incumbent who has more than $5 million (well more than 90 percent of that from out of state), and you are firing up a campaign just seven months before an election, your message gets drowned.
We knew this would happen, yet chose to run the race anyway. Why? Because we could. Because our cause was just. We were and are being represented in Washington, D.C., by a value system and an ideology that is not the North Dakota I grew up in.
Three and a half years ago, our North Dakota delegation couldn’t wait for Democrats to get their hands on the controls of our federal government. Today, they have the control they craved and cannot and will not stop their Democrat colleagues in Washington from passing everything from cap and trade to turning our health care system over to the federal government. They are also in lockstep with the most liberal, big-government president in our nation’s history. Not challenge that? No way.
I’m not a big fan of career politicians. Although Gov. Hoeven is in his unprecedented third term as governor, he’s not the lifer that Dorgan, Conrad and Pomeroy are. I personally would prefer to see a business owner, entrepreneur or average citizen in these positions of leadership, as we may be better represented in our government. The reality is a victorious republican candidate needs a well-funded, well-organized machine.
In 2006, Hoeven called me and encouraged me to run for the U.S. Senate. Now it’s my turn. Go for it, John!
Grotberg was a 2006 Republican
candidate for the U.S. Senate. |
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Federal employee health plan would work well for all |
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Tuesday, 30 June 2009 |
By Margaret Bitz
Fargo
“I want the kind of health care that our congressional leaders have” is a comment I have heard from a number of people who are critical of the current health care system.
To find out what kind of health care plan Congress has, I checked out an article at www.heritage.org/research/healthcare/bg1123.cfm.
The article was written in 1997 for the Heritage Foundation, a politically conservative organization, and is still pertinent today. The plan is called the Federal Employees Health Benefit Program.
The article attempts to demonstrate how Medicare might be reformed along this line with some changes.
This plan includes private insurers who must meet strict standards set by a federal agency that reviews the insurers’ proposals. People are provided with lots of information and then are given a choice on which insurer they want to use.
It provides for competition and yet holds the insurers to strict but manageable regulations for the good of the customer. It makes a lot of sense.
My suggestion would be to extend this plan to the entire population of the nation, discontinuing Medicare and Medicaid.
Since economic times are changing, I would also recommend that health insurance financing be cut loose from the workplace and that a health care tax, much like the income tax, be initiated to pay the government’s cost of the new health care plan. Premiums would still be a part of the plan. In the end, businesses would be freed from a financial burden.
The money saved by discontinuing Medicaid and Medicare would make it easier to pay the health care tax.
It was great to know that Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., has an idea for a cooperative health care system. I would want to know that the details are worked out as well as the federal employee program’s details.
Created in 1959, this plan has been tested and proven for more years than the Medicare program has been in existence.
It is interesting to note that no congressional member has proposed this plan for the nation.
I would suggest that this plan be studied by all and then comments sent to the respective congressional senators and representatives.
If anyone wants to call this socialized medicine, then federal employees are living under socialized medicine, and it hasn’t hurt them or the country. |
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Rally for Cure was most successful event yet |
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Tuesday, 30 June 2009 |
By Nancy King
Valley City
Rally For the Cure 2009 is over and due to many, it was our most successful event ever. Seventy-one people participated in some way, and we raised $1,138 for the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation. This included money donations and items donated that were used for a silent auction.
Without the generous support and cooperation of many local businesses, this would not have been possible. Floral shops, banks, merchants, investment services, grocers, health care facilites, radio, newspaper and more all contributed in their special way!
I am especially appreciative this year, after all our town has gone through. We are truly a small town with a big heart! My job as Rally coordinator is much easier and more fun because of the local willingness to support the event.
King is the coordinator of Rally for the Cure
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Socialized health care would take away American Dream |
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Thursday, 25 June 2009 |
By Brent McCarthy
Bismarck
The socialist Democratic Party cannot be honest about socialized medicine.
Socialists claim that socialized medicine will cut health care costs. Look at your shopping cart the next time you are in Wal-Mart. What would it look like if everything was free? When something is free, people use more. Health care is no exception.
Ask hospital employees about abuses by Medicaid recipients. Consider the fraud and abuse that goes on with Medicare. Governments cut their costs by paying less for services. Many doctors no longer accept Medicare patients because government reimburses them for less than what their services costs. In nations with socialized medicine, they have shortages of doctors because achievers pick another career or emigrate.
The winners of this system would be politicians, who will gain more power. The losers would be our nation’s youth, who would have their birthright (a shot at the American Dream) taken away. |
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It has been a pleasure being newspaper carrier |
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Thursday, 25 June 2009 |
By Aimee Podvin
Valley City
We would like to let our customers know that we will be leaving our newspaper route at the end of this month.
It has been our pleasure being your carriers for the last 2 1/2 years.
However, my daughter is getting older and she has decided it is time for her to move on.
We wish you well in the future, and we will see you around the neighborhood. |
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Commission should vote yes on snow dump site petition |
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Monday, 22 June 2009 |
Commission should vote yes on snow dump site petition
By Allen Boumont and Keith Baumgartner
Valley City
Prior to the June 1st Valley City City Commission meeting, all members of the commission along with the city administrator and Public Works superintendent received a copy of this petition to no longer put snow on Fourth Avenue Southeast.
The following petition will be on the agenda at the July 6th meeting and we would like the citizens of Valley City to read beforehand what this petition is all about.
Petition:
“WHEREAS many of us, the residents close to the Old Mill area, have not had water problems in our basements in years past. However, after City started dumping snow on that lot (especially on the edge of Fourth Avenue S.E.) many of us have had water seepage in our basements well into the summer.
“WHEREAS, such seepage has caused our homes to deteriorate and to lose value; we request that the City of Valley City no longer put snow piles at the Old Mill lot.”
At this time, there are currently 40 residents in this location by near the Old Mill site who were very glad to sign this petition.
When this petition is turned over to the commission on the sixth, hopefully they can bring it to a vote. They will have all had this petition in their possession for six weeks, so it is nothing new to them.
All we ask is to bring it to a vote with a yes vote. |
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