Readers write for Oct. 15, 2010

After reading "Mankato mayor avoids jail time" (Oct. 14), about the drunken-driving mayor of Mankato, I am stunned by the harsh sentence he received: Three whole days of community service? A $100 fine? How in the world will he find the time to pick up trash in a park for a few hours each of those days? Where is a mayor of a large city supposed to come up with all that money for the fine?

All he was doing was driving fast in a large, heavy motor vehicle with a blood-alcohol content three times the limit and striking two cars on the freeway, with an open bottle of vodka at his side. It's not like drunken drivers ever kill or injure other innocent drivers on the road -- that barely happens once or twice a week. Come on, judiciary system, give the guy a break just like you do every other drunken driver who is stupid or careless enough to drive impaired.

Seriously, the drunken-driving laws in this state are an absolute joke.

TODD ERICKSON, FRIDLEY

What a sad commentary on our society when all it takes is $10 million to buy representation in Washington, D.C. ("Bachmann campaign opens checkbooks -- and eyes," Oct. 14).

We are not better than other nations that we condemn for election fraud. Our election fraud is that only the people most able to amass obscene amounts of campaign money in order to slur, ridicule and tell lies about their opponents are elected to represent their constituents. Isn't it time to stop this fraud and get back to electing the most-qualified people regardless of party backing or the trail of money?

Where is the Tea Party movement on this one? Silence is golden, isn't it?

Maybe I'm touchy, but I resent David Brooks' claim in his Oct. 13 column ("Sorry, that money is unavailable") that the state employee pension that is easing my declining years is an "unproductive" use of money. (Though, to be honest, I feel the same way about the money the New York Times pays Brooks to produce his ill-informed columns.)

For example, his claim "that nationally, state and local workers earn on average $14 more per hour in wages and benefits than their private-sector counterparts" is belied by a study done last spring for the Center for State and Local Government Excellence and the National Institute for Retirement Security by University of Wisconsin economists Keith Bender and John Heywood. Their study concluded, in Bender's words, that, "in an apples-to-apples comparison, state and local government employees receive less than their private-sector counterparts."

Specifically, state employees make 11 percent less in wages and local employees 12 percent less; however, since benefits make up a larger percentage of compensation for government employees, the difference in total compensation is that state employees make 6.8 percent less and local employees 7.4 percent less than private-sector employees.

One of those benefits is the pension, but pensions are negotiated, and negotiation is a process whereby each side gives up one thing to get another. In this case, my union gave up a present good, such as a higher salary, to get a future good in the form of a better pension.

Unless Brooks has discovered a time machine that enables the state to go back and add some extra dollars to my paycheck, the state ought to live with the deal it agreed to.

A long time ago, Aesop produced the fable of the ant and grasshopper, which praised the ant for prudently looking to the future. In Brooks' world, however, prudent government employees have become the villains.

JOHN SHERMAN, MOORHEAD, MINN.

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It is an election year, so Republicans have to tell you that the economic recession is the fault of President Obama and all Democrats. Likewise, Democrats have to blame President George W. Bush and Republicans. We all expect this.

The masterful job, however, has been done in blaming our recession on those who work in the public sector: The economy is bad because nurses make too much money, because police officers have unions, because teachers are all incompetent and because city workers don't work long-enough hours. These fallacies are being spread by the very people who caused this economic recession -- some of the wealthiest Americans who happen to work in the private sector. Our financial meltdown began because a handful of millionaires wanted to become multimillionaires and because a handful of multimillionaires wanted to become billionaires as quickly as possible. This led to reckless, unethical and sometimes illegal decisions that we are all now paying for -- except for many of the very people who caused the problem.

You've got to be kidding me! Government did not cause this recession, but we need its help to get out -- and to ensure that it doesn't happen again.

Don't be fooled into believing that people who make $50,000 a year and are losing their jobs and homes are to blame for the recession -- they are the victims of it.