State’s leaders arecause of excessive costs
Re: “Menu prices getting harder to swallow” (Web page A1, Might 21).
Regardless of claims of rising prices as a consequence of tariffs, March’s Client Value Index and April’s Producer Value Index confirmed the sharpest declines because the early pandemic days, and crude oil costs have dropped almost 25% since Inauguration Day. Tariffs have additionally generated over $16 billion in income and are projected to generate $300 billion-$600 billion in exterior income by the tip of this yr. Whereas costs are falling nationwide, California faces excessive fuel costs ($4.87 vs. $3.18 U.S. common) and unaffordable housing ($904,210 vs. $407,600 U.S. common).
Due to failed management in Sacramento, California is being left behind. As an alternative of scapegoating the president for California’s excessive costs, look to your governor, the one-party supermajority dominating Sacramento, and the voters who maintain them in energy.
Jack BelgardePacheco
MDUSD ought to findradio station funding
Re: “Radio silence for Concord’s KVHS may be coming July 1” (Web page A1, Might 25).
Can the Mt. Diablo Unified College District stroll and chew gum on the identical time?
MDUSD’s check scores, like America’s typically, lag behind different superior international locations’ scores, inflicting expert, well-paid jobs to go unfilled or to go abroad.
So, MDUSD’s Superintendent Adam Clark’s remark, “So do I not focus on that and put resources into a radio station?” is sensible at first look.
However with 2024-25 Basic Fund revenues of $491 million, it’s arduous to consider MDUSD is unable to seek out $35,000 to maintain an necessary and common group useful resource like KVHS up and operating.
College students are instructed to assume creatively — MDUSD ought to do the identical.
Harlan StricklandMartinez
In case you’re not wealthy,tax invoice is unhealthy information
Re: “House passes tax bill that would wipe away clean energy tax credits” (Web page A4, Might 23).
Donald Trump’s tax invoice handed the Home final week. It’s headed to the Senate and should quickly be signed into legislation. It will likely be an absolute windfall for the richest 1% and crumbs for everybody else. It’ll explode the nationwide debt, similar to final time.
The invoice contains extreme cuts to Medicaid and meals stamps. Home Speaker Mike Johnson mentioned that the cuts won’t have an effect on deserving recipients, however will solely goal “waste, fraud and abuse.” Sound acquainted?
It jogs my memory of the previous adage, “The problem isn’t that the poor want too much, it’s that the rich will never be satisfied.”
Jim PetersonWalnut Creek
Trump’s ludicrousbehavior is unifying
In Donald Trump’s America, we have to begin utilizing the phrase “ludicrous” in a deeply bipartisan method.
Make Canada our 51st state? Ludicrous. Flip the island of Alcatraz again into a jail? Ludicrous.
It’s deeply disturbing to witness the course of our giant and numerous nation on many fronts as we accommodate Trump’s second time period. I’m grateful for the East Bay Occasions, in addition to different types of conventional journalism that I devour. I do know that I’m in excellent firm in being outraged and insulted each day by the Trump administration.
I protest at each alternative, as does virtually each different member of my group.
Elizabeth PrestonOakland
Trump supporters, isthis what you wished?
Donald Trump has at all times been an immoral and corrupt human being. His newest spherical of pardons to these discovered responsible of tax evasion, fraud and extra solely contributes to his popularity of favoring those that reward him (and provides him cash) and punishing or threatening with punishment those that don’t. Our felon-in-chief is main us to a authorities extra like that of Hungary than the one our Founding Fathers imagined.
To those that voted for him, are you actually certain that is what you wished?
Richard AckermanCastro Valley
Racial classificationskeep us divided
Relic, subjective, arbitrary, pseudo-science and divisive racial classifications gas America’s dissension. “Black” and “White” polarization pits Individuals in opposition to one another. The federal authorities, through Census designs, creates and undergirds segmentation. The decennial Census and the American Neighborhood Survey fragment America’s demographic. The Census’ ethnic assignments and racial categorization foster distrust, hyper-competitiveness and separation. “Black,” White” and different designations tax America’s soul.
Racial classifications chisel chasms. Fissures present alternatives for charlatans and demagogues. Utilization of racial classifications wears the material of the nation. The federal government can meet its obligations with out superficial demarcations. Let’s shelve racial classifications.
R. Okpara DanjumaOakland
