Letters to the Editor

Mixed signals

In December, the city of Charleston raises parking fines 75 percent to encourage citizens to use parking garages in downtown Charleston.

Then in January, the city's Department of Revenue introduces the SmartCard to make it more convenient to pay at a parking meter. Obviously the debit-style card is aimed at locals (business people, clients, shoppers and students) because "visitors from off" wouldn't know about the program.

Are we getting mixed signals from our mayor and city administration? First citizens are herded to parking garages with increased meter violation fines. Then they are offered freedom from the search for change to pay for on-street parking.

The bottom line is that the city is in the parking business to make lots of money. Unfortunately and unfairly, it is at the expense of the people who pay taxes to fund the city's operation.

If the city wants drivers to use parking garages, why incur the expense ($130,000) for the SmartCard system that makes it easier to park on the street?

That logic makes about as much sense as the $1.5 million city golf course tunnel. The same golfers who use the tunnel between hole 14 and 15 walk across Maybank Highway between hole nine and 10. Why don't we have two tunnels or no tunnels? It's the same road, same amount of vehicle traffic and the same danger for golfers crossing the highway at either spot. Maybe the city will use some of its parking revenue to build another tunnel.

Charles Thompson Jr.

Broad Street

Charleston

Must be a way

Regarding parking options for bridge walkers: Don't most of the events at the Omar Shrine Temple occur at night, and don't most people walk and exercise during the day? Surely there's a way to work this out.

Robin Condon

Braddock Avenue

North Charleston

Cut, trim taxes

I was taught in school that there are two pre-eminent reasons that we study history. The first is that it enables us to learn what worked so that we might build on those things. The second is that by observing what failed, we might avoid repeating failures. It appears that some of us slept through history class.

Our economic system and its success are based on free-market capitalism, not government spending. So why do we tax the daylights out of the two key components of our economic system — capital and labor? At a time when we should be slashing taxes and trimming regulations, we are getting ready to intensify spending beyond credibility and squash businesses with tax increases. This is the path to socialism.

Instead of encouraging the engine of our economy — the American people — we are rewarding failure on a grand scale and punishing producers. Four of our past presidents inherited damaged economies. All four, Coolidge, Kennedy, Reagan and George H.W. Bush slashed taxes early in their tenure and in each case the economy boomed.

The advantage of tax cuts is that the dollars stay where they are needed to create jobs. Cuts in income and corporate taxes make our products and companies more competitive and raise our standard of living. Abolishing these taxes along with the capital gains and payroll taxes would ignite an explosion of growth. It would slam the brakes on this very serious economic descent.

These various tax cuts are all part of the FairTax. That it would work has been determined by history, our top economists, $25 million of research and the knowledge that no politicians were involved in its development. Now it is our job to take the message to those who make our laws.

Dick Whitfield

Salt Wind Way

Mount Pleasant

False logic

A recent letter writer stated the expiration of the Bush tax cuts isn't a tax increase. I certainly hope the writer has a good chiropractor to realign his spine after bending that far back to come up with that false logic.

Casey Dameron

Apache Drive

Summerville

Send to Illinois

What about sending all the Guantanamo prisoners to prisons in Illinois, which is President Barack Obama's home state? Let the president be responsible for them where he once lived.

Deborah Parrish

Mariners Cay

Folly Beach

Loss for school

The recent firing of Porter-Gaud football coach Ricky Tillman should be viewed with disappointment and disgust. His overall record of 112 wins and 54 losses pales in comparison to the truly positive impact he has made on the hundreds of young men he has coached.

He has served as a role-model, mentor and friend. He has been there for them when others were not. He has helped them work through serious problems well beyond the missed blocks and tackles, or dropped passes and fumbles, or even the loss, Heaven forbid, of one of the 54 games.

These and other character-building factors do not appear in the win/loss statistics. His ability to win has been heavily dependent on the gene pool that produces the young men who show up for practice in mid-August.

True, these young men must be taught to play football, however, you must play the cards you are dealt. I know Coach Tillman did just that. I also know that Coach Tillman is a much better coach today than he was 15-20 years ago. The record for his last three years (8 wins/20 losses) certainly does not indicate that he has changed from a "good coach" to a "bad coach."

Coach Tillman has become another victim of a culture that values a win/loss record far above one's ability to provide a positive influence on athletes that will carry over into much more important aspects of their lives. Should the board stand firm in this decision, I personally consider the result will be Porter-Gaud's loss and Coach Tillman's next employer's gain.

Melvin H. Ezell Jr., Ed.D.

Nuffield Road

Charleston

Local drivers

In response to a recent letter to the editor criticizing South Carolina's drivers:

I commend Charleston's drivers. We are frequent visitors to Mount Pleasant and find the slower pace, friendly waves and courteous drivers a refreshing change from Atlanta traffic.

Angelica Lakhani

Trailing Ivy Way

Buford, Georgia

Racial progress

Maybe you applauded the positive tone of Frank Wooten's Jan. 25 column titled "Celebrating racial fairness beats celebrating carnage," but maybe you, like me, were disappointed with the column's overall message.

Mr. Wooten wrote: "Even we who didn't vote for Barack Obama should celebrate this indisputable indicator of bigotry's retreat."

Celebrating a victory that we did nothing to bring about?

How hypocritical.

Too many people who are quick to praise racial progress do nothing to contribute to the cause. Consider how much more progress we could have made if each of us, each day, would treat every individual with whom we come in contact simply as a deserving human being and use opportunities we have to promote racial fairness.

I challenge each of us to do this as a genuine way to celebrate Barack Obama's victory and what it means in terms of racial progress.

Bonnie Leazer

Certificate Court

Charleston