Readers write for Saturday, Oct. 10, 2009

Fake Twins and Vikings tickets should be a concern to all entertainment and sports venues and their patrons (Star Tribune, Oct. 8). This problem could be reduced if Minneapolis would provide peddler licenses for these local vendors, like St Paul and other municipalities do. Vendors would apply and undergo a background check before being issued a peddler's license, which they would have to display.

BERNARD KLEIN, WEST ST PAUL

The Wrights got it right in their Oct. 7 commentary, "We just might come to miss inside baseball." Having endured skimpy attendance due partly to the weather, then-Twins' owner Calvin Griffith in 1978 opted for an indoor stadium with the least cost to him. Ditto Vikings' owner Max Winter. Taxpayers strongly resisted subsidies, so the conflicted Legislature barely passed the decision off to a new "stadium" commission, along with a frugal $55 million cost limit.

Originally, the Dome's legally austere budget permitted only metal bench seats throughout. Innovative savings accrued during the initial construction process allowed for conversion to today's seats.

The Dome has done its job. It kept baseball and football in Minnesota at little cost to taxpayers, while offering great memories. It deserves respect, even from those who now feel entitled to a better, "first-class" inheritance.

Good luck to Target Field's future challenges with Minnesota weather. The facility looks great.

DON POSS, MINNEAPOLIS;

Rep. Erik Paulsen should read the Star Tribune more often. In "Warning: Fiscal iceberg dead ahead" (Opinion Exchange, Oct. 8), he decries a 93 percent increase in funding for one federal agency (not named).

However, on Aug. 18, the Star Tribune published a commentary by Brian Riedl showing that all federal agencies combined account for less than 5 percent of the federal deficit. Social Security, Medicare, financial bailouts, defense, antipoverty programs, interest on debt, etc., comprise the remaining 95 percent. Thus doubling of one agency's budget would have an inconsequential effect on the deficit.

LUCYAN MECH, ST. PAUL

I wonder if the Oct. 7 letter writer who suggested that abused spouses should arm themselves has read the story about the pistol-packing soccer mom in Florida who was shot by her husband in an apparent murder-suicide. Guess she should have gotten an AK47.

MARK HANLON, EAGAN

Health care is no more a right than owning a house or a car. Products and services that must be provided by the work of others are not rights.

The freedom to work in order to gain those products and services is a right. The freedom to engage in a free market to purchase insurance and health care is a right.

Doctors and health care professionals have those same rights -- to work in a free society, exchanging mutual benefits for the services and products they provide to their patients. Forcing these professionals to provide their services simply because someone claims a need for them is nothing short of slavery.

MARY ANNE WENINGER,