McAuliffe has better economic plan
1. 41-vehicle wreck ties up traffic Sunday on I-81 in Rockbridge County
2. Virginia Tech football roster has holes on picture day
3. Medicare penalties hit hospitals in Roanoke, New River Valleys
4. Microfestivus beer event gets downtown Roanoke hopping
5. McFarling: 2 little numbers are a big hurdle for Virginia Tech football
6. Arrest made in case of missing Nelson County teen
7. DAN CASEY: Copter cost still stirring up dust
8. Roanoke farmers markets making local foods more accessible
9. Virginia attorney general's office grows under Ken Cuccinelli
10. Man's drowning is 5th in Lynchburg area
Tuesday, July 16, 2013
McAuliffe has better economic plan
Cher McCoy’s letter (“Elect Cuccinelli for state economy,” July 6) illustrates the clear choice we have for governor. Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli’s plan of lowering income taxes with no clear plan for how to pay for it will run up deficits.
Cuccinelli’s record indicates what he will do. His failed fraud lawsuit against a University of Virginia professor cost lots of taxpayer dollars. But it did burnish his right-wing credentials with climate skeptics, as did other failed lawsuits against the Environmental Protection Agency.
Recently, Cuccinelli’s staffer advised CNX, a Consol Energy subsidiary, in its case against landowners’ claims for gas royalties. Perhaps the $111,000 campaign donation from Consol clouded Cuccinelli’s sense of ethics.
In contrast, Democrat Terry McAuliffe has a record of many successful businesses. McAuliffe’s investment in Green Tech, the electric car company, will prove to be wise, even with roadblocks states put up, such as Virginia’s alternative fuel fee.
McAuliffe has a better plan of how improved technology, education and transportation can attract industry. This plan will not cost taxpayers as McCoy states. Keep Virginia on a sensible path by electing McAuliffe governor, Ralph Northam lieutenant governor and Mark Herring attorney general.
JOAN KARK
Chairwoman
Giles County Democratic Committee
PEARISBURG
Biden won’t help save Virginia’s coal jobs
Democratic gubernatorial candididate Terry McAuliffe should be ashamed of himself. Why would he appear at a fundraising dinner with Vice President Joe Biden, part of an Obama administration busy conducting a war on coal? It’s not like McAuliffe is hurting for funding; he almost certainly will outspend his Republican opponent, Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, this year.
McAuliffe needs to learn this: Virginia needs coal. There are almost 5,000 Virginians who work in the industry and thousands more who work in jobs associated with it. These workers earn $1.5 billion in annual wages each year.
Radical environmentalists can complain all they want, but they cannot guarantee that solar and wind power will be able to replace these lost jobs if the Obama administration destroys the coal industry.
McAuliffe needs to learn how to protect Virginia jobs. So far, it doesn’t seem he has learned much, as demonstrated by his attendance at this dinner and his choice to set up a car manufacturing plant in Mississippi rather than Virginia.
Heaven help us if McAuliffe ends up in the governor’s mansion.
SHIRLEY JOSLIN
VINTON
On religion, founders’ meaning is clear
Again, it seems the religious right just doesn’t get it. Case in point: Keith Johnson’s tirade (“Protect freedom by practicing it,” July 5 commentary) regurgitates the argument that “separation of church and state” is not in the Constitution.
The exact words aren’t there, but its implications were made quite clear when Thomas Jefferson wrote in his famous letter to the Danbury Baptist Church:
“I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should ‘make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,’ thus building a wall of separation between Church & State.”
Not only that, in 1797, our government stated in its Treaty of Tripoli that “the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion.” Yep, looks pretty clear to me.
Johnson is so intent on allowing city officials to push their own religious beliefs on others on the taxpayers’ dollar, I wonder if he’d be gung-ho if some city official started a meeting by praising Allah, or perhaps Satan.
Separation of church and state is indeed part of our Constitution, and for darn good reason.
STEVEN KRANOWSKI
BLACKSBURG
1. 41-vehicle wreck ties up traffic Sunday on I-81 in Rockbridge County
2. Virginia Tech football roster has holes on picture day
3. Medicare penalties hit hospitals in Roanoke, New River Valleys
4. Microfestivus beer event gets downtown Roanoke hopping
5. McFarling: 2 little numbers are a big hurdle for Virginia Tech football
6. Arrest made in case of missing Nelson County teen
7. DAN CASEY: Copter cost still stirring up dust
8. Roanoke farmers markets making local foods more accessible
9. Virginia attorney general's office grows under Ken Cuccinelli
10. Man's drowning is 5th in Lynchburg area
THE ROANOKE TIMES
