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CalFresh meant to
help people in need
Re: “CalFresh setup causes a stink” (Page A1, March 20).
I found the article on CalFresh disturbing.
I was under the impression that programs like CalFresh were established to help those in real need: seniors on limited fixed incomes; people who, for reasons beyond their control, are in need of temporary assistance; people without family or other resources.
I do not see how a 24-year-old college graduate falls into any of these categories. She does not need assistance. She needs a job. There is no reason she, and others like her, should be using limited taxpayer resources designed to help those in need when she appears to be perfectly capable of working and providing for herself. If she wishes to further educate herself she can attend school at night and or on weekends like so many others are doing.
There is a huge difference between “I want” and “I need.”
Stan Stadelman
Castro Valley
Leave Section 8
oversight to feds
Assembly Bill 653, now in the state Senate, creates a fund of $200 million and a new department to oversee how local housing authorities authorize Section 8 vouchers. Section 8 is a HUD federal program.
California has between a $30 billion and $70 billion budget problem. It should balance its budget and let HUD manage its program. If the state wants to add value, report on their housing programs.
Mark Palajac
Livermore
Charging network
must be expanded
Re: “Biden rolls out new rules to boost EVs” (Page A4, March 21).
As a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle owner I speak from experience. The public charge network is a complete joke.
Charge stations need to be as ubiquitous as gas stations before buying a battery EV is practical for most people, many of whom don’t have access to a home charger.
Bernard Larner
Orinda
Local congressmen
cast votes for climate
I’d like to thank Reps. Ro Khanna and Eric Swalwell for voting no on the recently passed House Concurrent Resolution 86, which opposes the idea of a carbon tax. The resolution mistakenly assumes that such a tax would harm our economy. In fact, the opposite is true.
Fossil fuels currently have an unfair advantage over cleaner alternatives because their price doesn’t account for costs incurred from warming and polluting our planet. A carbon fee would level the playing field. If the money generated is returned equally to all residents, it would compensate them for any price increases; most lower- and middle-income households would break even, or even come out ahead.
A properly structured carbon price, with a cashback, would create jobs while also improving public health and providing an impetus for technological innovation. It is a powerful weapon against climate change that should remain on the table.
Irmgard Flaschka
Newark
Washington offers
stark contrast to Trump
My book group read Edmund Morgan’s “The Genius of George Washington.”
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Washington, who led the outnumbered and overwhelmed colonial forces against the British soldiers, understood power in his ability to take command, which led ultimately to victory. After the war, although our new republic was weak, “he was outraged by the very idea of rebellion against a republican government, but he was also outraged by the reaction of Americans who talked without horror of substituting a monarch for the ineffective Congress.” Washington had no yearning for personal power, wrote Morgan. “He was wary of any move that might be construed as a bid for personal power or that might threaten the supremacy of civil government over the military.”
Oh, what a contrast to the “I alone can fix it” self-exalted Donald Trump, that self-proclaimed “stable genius” whose narcissism and corruption know no bounds, whose influence is not only crude but destructive.
Deborah Livingstone
Fremont