Abuses in China; GOP efforts to cut the federal budget; waste at the DWP

Boycott China

Re “China’s disabled exploited as slaves,” Column One, Feb. 26

“Young women have been sold by psychiatric hospitals as sexual partners and wives; mentally disabled young men have been imprisoned as forced laborers in coal mines and brick factories.”

China enslaves and tortures its own; exports baby formula, pet food and food products laced with dangerous materials for human consumption; steals proprietary technology and intellectual property; counterfeits retail products; denies its population access to information; imprisons anyone at will; disallows a recipient to accept his Nobel Peace Prize; and has slaughtered dissidents seeking freedom from oppression.

Isn’t it time to boycott China? If not now, when?

Mitch Paradise

Los Angeles

Excellent article. This is exactly why we have and need unions in the United States.

Need I say more?

Kay Coleman

Carson

Ideology vs. industry

Re “GOP freshmen face a test of wills,” March 1

The Times’ article focusing on the new warrior class of the Republican Party underscores the problem of placing ideology over industry in reforming our federal budget.

Instead of laboring hard to understand how government is supposed to work in serving the people,

these braves are content to tomahawk their way through the budget without any regard for making sure the results are improvements to the system.

It is time to stop putting recklessness over reason and rashness over responsibility.

Tim Geddes

Huntington Beach

Maybe the GOP’s freshmen wouldn’t have to make $61 billion in cuts if our government didn’t have so many redundant agencies. According to the Government Accountability Office, there are 15 agencies overseeing food-safety laws, more than 20 programs for the homeless and 80 for economic development. The cost to taxpayers is estimated at $100 billion to $200 billion.

So I feel the pain of the mentally ill and elderly in Arizona. Until the government gets its act together, there will continue to be this type of injustice.

William deLorimier

San Gabriel

So, the GOP freshmen “promise to reverse course on years of growing deficits and to rewrite the government’s role in American life by reducing it.”

Just 10 years ago, the federal government had a surplus that was predicted to grow in the future. Then George W. Bush was elected by the Supreme Court, and he demanded and got massive tax cuts for the wealthy, without which we would have no or very little deficit today.

Cut taxes on the rich, then cut safety-net programs — the new American way for Republicans.

Mike Schooling

San Diego

If freshman budget hawks like Arizona’s Paul Gosar are so intent on balancing the budget, why are they living for free in their Capitol Hill offices and showering at taxpayer expense in the congressional gym?

Put your money where your mouth is, Rep. Gosar, and pay us fair market rent for your Capitol Hill

accommodations and go to a private gym like the rest of us.

Eric Alter

Woodland Hills

Pumped up

Re “The DWP’s little pump that eats money,” Opinion, Feb. 27

From Bell’s corrupt administration to the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power pump fiasco, this city and state has been taken to the cleaners for who knows how many millions (or billions?) of taxpayer dollars.

While I want to thank Tom Christie for having the dogged curiosity to pursue this oft-ignored symbol of bureaucratic oversight, I am also fearful for the thousands of other wasteful initiatives that sit alone on the roadside, long forgotten by all but those who cash those municipal rent checks.

And while I doubt there’s a Pulitzer waiting for this kind of reporting, it is invaluable and representative of what I hope to find regularly in this newspaper. Your efforts have not gone unnoticed.

Todd Koerner

Hermosa Beach

Marriage vows

Re “Same-sex weddings, now,” Editorial, Feb. 28

The Times states that “same-sex couples are being deprived of their constitutional right to marry” because of the stay preventing a federal court’s ruling against Proposition 8 from being enforced.

Nowhere in the U.S. Constitution does it state that any adult can marry any other consenting adult. I can’t legally marry my daughter, son, mother or father, nor can anyone else in this country. Have my constitutional rights been violated? Of course not.

The whole notion that any adult can marry any other adult is ridiculous.

Bob Wallace

Corona

Up to the voters

Re “Brave Republicans needed,” Column, Feb. 28

George Skelton’s call for brave Republicans might just as well have been for courageous Californians. We have an opportunity to face our state’s financial troubles using the American way: the ballot box. To belittle letting voters decide how we repair a broken state is a prescription for California’s further slide into the abyss of debt while legislators posture.

Let Californians vote and decide whether to temporarily extend the tax hikes for five years. It’s our debt, and we should be thoughtful about how we’re going to fix it. If 30 of the 42 Republican legislators signed a no-tax pledge, we can let them off the hook by allowing California voters to determine whether we pay for fiscal soundness.

Of course, then we’ll have to ask ourselves, are we resolute enough to improve?

Kara Knack

Malibu

On Sigoloff

Re “Remembering Sandy Sigoloff, turnaround ace,” Business, Feb 27

I too remember Sandy Sigoloff. In 1984, I was working on my MBA thesis. The subject was the bankruptcy of the Wickes Cos. I scheduled an interview with Sigoloff.

Despite his schedule and responsibilities, he took my phone call and agreed to a one-hour interview in his office in Santa Monica. His command of the intricacies of the company’s situation was evident. He was clearly also in command of himself. At one point in the conversation, he needed to take a phone call. He paused, I switched off the tape recorder, he completed the phone call, I turned on the tape recorder and he continued the conversation without missing a word or a thought.

He was impressive, candid and also very gracious to me.

Gillian Ackland

La Jolla

Fair play

Re “Wrong message on unions,” Column, March 1

Yes, it seems unfair that public employees and their unions enjoy bargaining rights while contributing to the campaigns of the officials who set their wages and benefits. But isn’t it just as unfair that corporations, contractors and their trade organizations fund and campaign for the elected officials who regulate them and select their contract bids?

If public employees lose bargaining rights because of a conflict of interest, fairness would demand that corporations and contractors lose the right to fund and campaign for elected officials as well. Like that will ever happen.

Lewis Stout

Los Angeles

Good-food guy

Re “Patt Morrison Asks: Food fighter,” Opinion, Feb. 26

Kudos to Jamie Oliver for recognizing the importance of food justice and suggesting ways to help those living in areas that have little access to healthy food. The Food Empowerment Project released a study last August that found that communities of color and lower incomes in Santa Clara County have very limited access to healthful food.

It’s time that we recognized that access to healthful food should be a right and not a privilege.

Valerie Belt

Pacific Palisades

Terrorism fuel

Re “Obama seeks a new policy on Mideast,” Feb. 26

U.S. policy in the Middle East has been to support or accept autocrats to combat terrorism. Perhaps this was a Catch-22, in that the autocracies fomented a toxic climate that allowed for the cultivation of deranged ideologies.

Scott Bentley

Malibu