I started reading the editorial on the obesity crisis (TNT, 12-5) with much interest, as I am a P.E. teacher and a parent. Everything was fine until I got to the paragraph that praises the Franklin-Pierce School District’s partnership with the YMCA to provide elementary P.E..

I know times are tough for a lot of school districts, but it is not a good thing to eliminate these positions and replace them with non-teachers. As a certified teacher, I’ve been trained in a great deal more than just physical education. I could elaborate, but I’m sure you don’t care. The News …

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I am all for first ladies having a focus and helping to spread the word and clean up an area of society that seems to be in need. It is Michelle Obama’s desire to cut down on the number of obese persons in society. Good intentioned, but the way she is going about it is causing major frustrations throughout the land.

On talk radio, I hear callers expressing their frustration at working as a food server and putting out the food that Mrs. Obama wants the kids to eat, but the kids don’t eat it and dump this unused food …

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For seven or more years, the city of Tacoma has been in the bridge rehab business and The News Tribune has been painting and welding right along side. If the Murray Morgan and Hylebos bridges can be out of service for years, their necessity is highly suspect. Small business owners have failed or relocated with these bridge closures. Emergency services have new routes for accessing properties.

The city of Tacoma is in a budget crisis and can’t even fill potholes, but they can maintain unnecessary bridges? What, all because they got some free money? Given by a country (read taxpayers) laboring under …

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The Institute of Medicine released a study in September about improving health care and reducing costs. Congress should take note that wasted spending amounts to $765 billion. This includes $75 billion in fraud, $55 billion in missed preventive care, $130 billion in preventable mistakes, $190 billion in bureaucracy costs, $210 billion in unnecessary services and $105 billion in excessive prices.

Eliminating this waste would be a substantial help in the current fiscal mess. Both liberals and conservatives should be crying foul. But I would bet we won’t hear a peep unless we as taxpayers express our concern by sending these …

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House Speaker John Boehner has removed four fiscally conservative Representatives (i.e., Representatives who had the temerity to take the Republican mantra of “smaller government” to heart) from the Budget Committee and the Financial Services Committee. Their crime: Voting against increased spending.

Maybe it is time to revisit tax rates and deductions for the rich. But that is only half of the problem. The national debt is now over $16 trillion and may exceed $20 trillion by the end of Obama’s term in office. U.S. monetary and fiscal policy is destroying the value of the U.S. dollar, which is now worth …

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On Tuesday, the Senate fell short of the two-thirds vote required to ratify a United Nations treaty, the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. All the votes against were Republican.

The treaty requires no change to U.S. law, and is patterned after the standards in the Americans With Disabilities Act. It would be a non-binding international standard.

I cannot understand the current thinking of the far right senators who voted against this treaty signed by President Bush. Does this signal a growing isolationism, a disregard of the status of people with disabilities, or what? Was this just another …

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While the timing of the Israeli settlement announcement may not be the best, the Palestinian unilateral bid for statehood on November 29 violates United Nations Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338 that call for Israel-PA negotiated land-for-peace agreements leading to “secure and recognized boundaries.”

The Oslo Accords forbid either side from taking unilateral steps that would prejudge the final status of all disputed territory. That is why the editorial, “Count on Israel to sabotage its one path to peace” (TNT, 12-3), is correct when it says, rather sarcastically, that the Palestinian Authority “wasn’t supposed to seek a certificate of statehood …

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Most small businesses are run as LLC, sole proprietorship or S-corps. These small business taxes are passed through the business owner’s income tax.

For example: Let’s say a small business makes more than $250,000 for tax purposes, but the owner can only take a salary of $90,000. The business income passes through to the owners’ personal income tax causing the owner to pay taxes on the $250,000!

Often times, these same small business owners can take dividends in order to pay their high business tax. With Obama’s proposed increased tax to “the wealthy,” many small business owners will unfairly be …

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