Deschutes County Sheriff Kent van der Kamp in his office. (Dean Guernsey/The Bulletin)

Sheriff’s trip is wrong

As a taxpayer I find it insulting that our Sheriff Kent van der Kamp wants to spend some $3,500 in taxpayer funds to travel to a law enforcement convention in Florida. He is a failure “on his way out” of law enforcement. I see no benefit for Deschutes County taxpayers in him attending the event. He has lied in court and lost his credibility as a witness.

He needs to just go away and stop wasting our hard earned dollars.

– Dave Stalker, Bend

 

Thornburgh resort will cause harm

This week, the Deschutes County Board of Commissioners is deliberating again on the proposed Thornburgh resort development. We want our children and grandchildren to be able to call Central Oregon home, and the Thornburgh resort puts that vision in peril.

We are concerned that indigenous science and the treaty rights of the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs have been blatantly disregarded by the Commission. The ancestors of the CTWS called this place home long before we and our ancestors did, and their understanding of how to care for water, fish and wildlife is essential. Thornburgh violates the Treaty of 1855. People across the country are watching to see whether Deschutes County honors this treaty. 

It is especially important for people of faith and fierce love with lineage in Christian tradition to pay attention in this moment. One of the legacies of Christianity is its championing of the seizure of indigenous lands. There is repair to do.

We cannot, in good conscience, promise a future to our children and grandchildren here in Central Oregon if we allow a new resort to pump up to six million gallons of water a day to serve the wealthiest. Thornburgh cannot clearly show how they might avoid harm and diminishment to water, fish and wildlife, and we will all suffer those consequences.

There is only one way forward that enables us to continue to call Central Oregon home: YES to water; YES to affordable housing; YES to treaty rights; and NO to Thornburgh.

– Rev. Erika Spaet and Alissa Tower are members of the Storydwelling community in Bend, a religious organization. 

 

Drying up Social Security

Most menial jobs are done by undocumented workers, such as meat processing, cutting lettuce, hoeing/picking strawberries, cleaning motel/hotel rooms, just to name a few. Almost all agricultural field work is done by undocumented laborers.

So, I have a question. Why are Trump and the Republicans so eager to deport millions of undocumented workers?

Yes, it’s white supremacy, power and all that.  But I think something more.

Republicans said they wouldn’t cut Social Security or Medicare. They know if they did, no Republican would ever be elected again. They  told us, all those undocumented laborers had to go.

What they didn’t tell us is that all those undocumented workers paid taxes for which they will never see a cent, because they do not have Social Security numbers. Undocumented laborers according to the Institute of Taxation and Economics, paid $96.7 billion federal, state and local  taxes in 2022.: $25.7 billion in Social Security taxes, $6.4 billion into Medicare and $1.8 billion for unemployment insurance.

So, here’s the truth.  With most of the undocumented laborers gone, those taxes will no longer flow into Social Security or Medicare, and here is where the Republicans get their wish. 

Because the taxes paid by the undocumented will cease to flow into those programs, they  will slowly dry up and collapse.

Republicans will kill those programs by attrition and there is not a darned thing we can do about it.

– Diana Hopson, Redmond