Letters to the Editor, Jan. 17, 2019 | Trump’s motives were purely racists

We should be talking about guns

Donald Trump was photographed shaking hands with the brother of Ronil Singh, the police office who was shot and killed in Newman on Dec. 26. Trump has used this case and others in his speeches to emphasize the importance of keeping immigrants from entering the country and to instill a fear of people who are different. Racism, pure and simple.

I’m not sure if he realizes or cares that the majority of people killed in this country are not killed by immigrants, but by native-born Americans.

The article said the officer was “gunned down.” Guns are easily obtained in this country by anyone. Guns kill on a daily basis. When will Americans stop talking about the Second Amendment and do something about the guns that are everywhere? When will the conversation begin about the real cause for thousands of deaths in this country? Guns, not immigrants.

If state still owes, there is no surplus

After seeing Gov. Gavin Newsom’s boast about the “balanced budget with a surplus” and listening to former Gov. Jerry Brown make the same boasts, I looked in the internet under “California’s debt.”

One of the first articles is by Bloomberg, providing headlines, “California’s Gavin Newsom uses boom pay down $256 billion debt.”

Oh, wait a minute, that is the unfunded liabilities owed to the public employee reitrement funds CalPERS and CalSTRS.

I found articles in which the authors believed California’s debt was anywhere from $462 billion to $1.3 trillion when all city and county debt is added in. According to the US Debt clock.org, California’s debt is $462 billion and increasing every moment. It shows “in-state revenue” of $455 billion and spending of $568 billion. Wait a minute, that’s over $110 billion more than we’re bringing in!

Whatever happened to spending what you can actually afford? Stop lying to us and pay off our debt before you start more useless programs.

Editor’s note: California’s official budget numbers are available at https://lao.ca.gov/ Publications/Report/3870

Seeing the future through the smoke

What are we thinking? Legalizing a drug and making it easier for our teens to use! A well-known psychologist has said on his TV show that one-time use of the drug can stunt a person’s brain development and leave them at a teen level. This same source says a person’s brain is not fully developed until age 23 or 25. So what are we thinking? We’re not happy with the leadership of our country now, but what are the odds of having qualified leaders in years to come? Kudos to those young people making wise choices.