Letters to the editor for Thursday, Jan. 3

In his letter defending Sen. Dick Day and the Minuteman Corps, a Jan. 2 writer asserted that "85 percent of all sexual predators are foreign nationals." I wondered about the basis for this rather surprising statistic, so I checked some Immigration and Customs press releases. What do you know? The writer was fudging the truth more than a little bit.

The actual statistic is that 85 percent of the arrests made by Immigration and Customs Enforcement as part of a targeted effort called Operation Predator are foreign nationals. How amazing, Immigration is focusing on foreign nationals. Next the writer can regale us with the claim that 85 percent of the people arrested by police departments in Illinois are Illinois residents.

Lying with statistics in order to generate hysteria is hardly new, but rarely is it this blatant. Tell you what. Why doesn't the letter writer worry about what goes on in his state of California (with almost 10 times more predators arrested than in Minnesota, according to ICE) and let us worry about what happens here, 2,000 miles away? Deal?

JIM MANSON, WEST ST. PAUL

Your Dec. 29 editorial "On taxes and Caribou" lauded the city of Woodbury for comparing the costs of its city services to a variety of everyday personal service purchases. So the price of two large Caribou coffees per week can be roughly equated to the average per-property cost of snowplowing or street work. From this and similar comparisons you conclude the people of Woodbury are getting a deal on city services compared to what they spend for cable TV, cell phone, Internet and the like. Really?

Remember that companies like Caribou, Comcast and Verizon must offer the same price to all households who receive the same services, no matter what the value of their respective properties may be. Yet, when municipalities like Woodbury list "average" costs of city services they ignore their deplorable practice of collecting more property taxes from some and less from others, despite no real difference in police protection, enjoyment of parks, use of street lights, etc.

Just imagine Caribou giving Joe Sixpack a 60 percent discount on his coffee because he lives in a two-bedroom starter house and then charging John Doe double because he owns a large five-bedroom custom home. How reasonable would those coffee costs be? Leninists might approve, but anybody embracing the ethos of American democracy would cringe.

STEVE HENDRICKSON, BURNSVILLE

Informed voters are tired of supporting candidates who do not have an ounce of experience to support their partisan platitudes. Candidates Ashwin Madia's and Steve Sarvi's advocacy of an organized withdrawal of American troops from Iraq is supported by their boots-on-the-ground deployment in Iraq. This was evident at a recent "war debate" in the western suburbs.

Although the other Democratic candidates spoke in abstract generalities, Madia's clear communication, problem-solving specificity and proud patriotism were frequently rewarded with spontaneous applause.

DEE ANN CHRISTENSEN, COON RAPIDS

Regarding the Dec. 27 article "Should state tax breaks be disclosed?": Who could argue with creating jobs in rural Minnesota? My hat's off to our altruistic and bipartisan state Legislature! To date $18.7 million in tax breaks from JOBZ has been realized by some. We don't know who. So let's focus on two questions: Whose money is it, and do we live in a democracy?

Don Gemberling, who had overseen Minnesota public records for decades, is correct to imply that public benefit should come with greater openness to public disclosure. We should further demand to know what payoff we can expect for our investment. If an entrepreneur or job creator is unwilling to agree to such simple conditions, he is unworthy of our money.

What would be a good trade for the subsidy? If the objective is job creation then it should be a job that pays a living wage. The normal expenses of a person or a family -- food, housing, medical care, transportation, taxes, etc. -- to keep out of poverty are about $17,000 a year for a single person in Minnesota, $37,000 for two adults and one child. Therefore one could fairly expect the jobs that come from the program to generate a minimum of $17,000 a year.

State summary data on JOBZ tax breaks as reported by the Star Tribune may be meaningless but nonetheless suggest an average annual pay of less than that for jobs created so far. Subsidies socialize risk. Without accountability, profit is easily privatized. There is no place for this type of wealth distribution in a democracy. We must at least allow for accountability and demand that the jobs we get in return pay at or above a living wage. The rest will take care of itself.

TIM ONTKO, MINNEAPOLIS

Regarding Adam Freedman's Dec. 27 column, "How would you diagram this sentence?": The Second Amendment is very clear that it only means militia, not that everyone has the right to keep and bear arms. Were that the case there would be no need to even mention the word militia.