Consider the causes
After reading “In Denial” (Letters to the Editor, Sequim Gazette, March 30, page A-12), the author must be the one in denial.
Let’s look at inflation, energy and the economy. Inflation accelerated in 2021 due to government stimulus payments and record low interest rates. When talking about a “bloated multi-trillion dollar stimulus package,” remember that about $3 trillion in COVID relief spending was signed by the previous President and supported by Republicans.
High energy prices are the result of surging demand and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
At the end of 2021, there were more than 9,000 approved and available permits to drill on federal and Indian lands. Energy companies are reluctant to start new projects because of high costs, equipment and labor shortages, and highly volatile oil prices.
More than 100 drillers went bankrupt in 2020 when oil prices plummeted. Keystone XL would not have lowered gasoline prices in the US. Oil that would have flowed through Keystone XL is still coming from Canada by rail and existing pipelines. Keystone XL oil would have flowed to gulf coast refineries equipped to process the heavier Canadian crude into gasoline and other petroleum products. Most would not have been sold in the U.S. because gulf coast refineries export about two-thirds of their products.
The “booming economy” we supposedly lost when the previous administration left office is nonsense. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) increased 5.7 percent in 2021, the most since 1984. The U.S. added more jobs (6.4 million) in 2021 than any year in history, and unemployment is down to 3.6 percent.
Louis Kalmar
Sequim
Ignorance is no excuse, No. 5
My first four published letters to the editor with this title were descriptive of Donald Trump, his ilk and/or other people buying and using a malaria drug, a horse de-wormer, or an expensive Canadian peat bog mud internally to treat COVID instead of a free, scientifically developed, proven, safe, effective, readily accessible COVID vaccine.
This letter is about the Governor of Florida, xxxxx DeSantis, attempting to spread more of his ignorance by issuing an edict “Don’t Say Gay!”
I think we, including the people of Florida, all have Constitutional First Amendment free speech rights. Individuals (humans, other animals, reptiles, even insects) who or which have same sex tendencies, are common in nature. Included but not limited to are humans, gorillas, apes, sheep, cattle, hyenas, lizards and insects. All are born or hatched with those tendencies.
There’s not much else to say. For any U.S. governor to issue a mandate, which violates a citizen’s constitutional rights to free speech, probably won’t survive a challenge in court. Ignorance is no excuse for doing so.
Richard Hahn
Sequim
