We gave power to drug cartels
Re: “Cartel violence fuels calls for military action,” March 10 news story.
The saber-rattling by some in Congress advocating U.S. military action against the Mexican cartels, as expected, is a knee-jerk reaction to a problem the U.S. helped create. The cartels operate with impunity because they wield power that America has provided them.
Cartel power is based on firepower and enormous wealth. Most of the firepower used by the cartels is from weapons obtained legally or otherwise from the U.S. The incredible wealth and financial power are derived from the cartels’ drug sales to its No. 1 customer, America, and its unsatiable appetite for drugs. We helped create this monster. Sad but true.
Tony Torres, Garland
Biden is being played
With millions of migrants crossing illegally each year, border communities are being overwhelmed by the burden they’ve been handed by the federal government.
This crisis is complex, and to fix it, you need to spend time with the folks who know it best, but President Joe Biden and his team refuse to do this.
Tragically, while Border Patrol agents are overwhelmed processing and transporting migrants who are flooding into our country, cartels take advantage of those distractions to smuggle heroin, fentanyl and who knows what else.
This is all part of a game for the cartels, and the Biden administration is getting played.
Communities along the U.S.-Mexico border are dealing with the fallout from Biden’s policy failures, even though existing law already gives him the tools to address this disaster.
I think it’s past time he put them to use.
Don Pearce, Dallas
Make our kids a priority
Re: “Priorities split House, Senate — Lists of favored bills overlap but nonetheless reveal two sides of the GOP,” Tuesday news story.
Reading those priorities, along with those of the governor, makes me ill. Do they not get news items, especially those from Italy recently about children under Department of Family and Protective Services’ care who were killed and injured?
If children in Texas are not a priority for this state government, then what is?
Ah, I know the answer. Those children don’t have their own lobbyists. No lobbyists, no consideration by the Legislature, lieutenant governor and governor.
Please show us, and more importantly, the vulnerable children of Texas, that the state government cares by making children a priority in the budget and passing appropriations in their favor.
Mac Hopkin, Frisco
Teacher pay vs. pupil performance
Re: “Dems unveil education plan,” Thursday news story.
House Democrats in Austin are talking about giving our teachers a $7,000 raise with another $3,000 next year. Over the years, teachers have been given higher raises with the goal of recruiting better teachers. Better teachers to produce better students.
How has that worked out for the past 10 years? Are we, as taxpayers, getting our money’s worth? Are the kids graduating now performing at 12th-grade level? Unfortunately, too many are reading and writing at far lower standards then they should be.
Paying teachers more and more does not seem to equate to successful skill in teaching. Maybe there is a lot more to the business of teaching kids then the amount of salary that teachers are paid. It is time to address the fact that when a student does not pass a test, it is the result of a teacher who was not able to impart the knowledge to the students.
A student’s grade is really not just the student’s grade, it is also the teacher’s grade. Yes, give the teacher who is performing their teaching skills well a raise. Others should be shown the door of new career opportunities.
Ted Gold, Plano
Illogical economics
Jerome Powell, chairman of the Federal Reserve, said in his testimony delivered to the U.S. House Financial Committee recently that his only tool to fight inflation is to raise interest rates.
I think the policy of raising interest rates to fight inflation is stuck on stupid. That seems to be the prevailing economic wisdom today. Which reminds me of the pre-Copernicus prevailing wisdom that the Earth was the center of the universe: Galileo found out that if you differ from the prevailing wisdom, you would be arrested.
The idea that increasing interest rates — thereby increasing home prices, car prices and virtually everything else — decreases inflation stands logic on its head. I think the best way to fight inflation would be to increase supply and lower interest rates. For example: Televisions are inexpensive because they are abundant; houses are expensive because of high interest rates and a limited supply; gasoline is expensive because of high demand and low supply.
The idea that creating higher prices for goods fights inflation is pre-Copernicus economics, I suggest.
Don Skaggs, Garland
N. Texas Iranians support secular state
Re: “It’s about human rights — Downtown Dallas march condemns women’s rights abuses in Iran,” March 12 news story.
This story refers to House Resolution 100, which supports uprisings in Iran and has more than 223 bipartisan co-sponsors as of this writing.
The resolution is strongly supported in our Iranian community in North Texas, and we have enthusiastically campaigned for it because it supports the Iranian people’s ongoing protests for a democratic, secular republic. It cites massive human rights violations in Iran, including the 1988 massacre of thousands of political prisoners and the key role of the current president, Ebrahim Raisi, in that massacre. Some members of our community here have lost loved ones in those executions.
The resolution also notes the Iranian regime’s masterminding of a foiled bombing plot in 2018 at a huge opposition gathering in Paris, which many of us from Dallas attended.
Homeira Hesami, Carrollton
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