Readers Write, for Sunday, Dec. 6

I feel like there are two Obamas. One is the candidate I heard at the Xcel Energy Center accepting the Democratic presidential nomination, and the other is sending 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan.

FRANCISCO GAYTÁN, ST. PAUL

Finally, Gov. Tim Pawlenty can save Minnesota some money.

Since he has already stated he might again use unallotment in the 2010 legislative session, and we know he is shortsighted and arrogant enough to do just that, why bother having a session at all?

Despite never getting close to 50 percent of the votes to win his office, he knows he's the "man." So let's use the money we spend on a legislative session on some of the people who will lose their health care lifelines.

GARY GALLAGHER, MINNETONKA

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LISA RAGSDALE, MINNEAPOLIS

President Obama emphatically announced that the only road to economic recovery is through the creation of jobs. I applaud his position, but wonder how he suggests we create permanent, lasting jobs that give consumers the confidence needed to spend dollars on goods and services?

Is a stimulus package that builds some roads and bridges going to solve the problem? Do we really believe that if someone is given a tax incentive to replace their windows, any permanent window replacement jobs will be created?

At the end of the day, the only way to create jobs is to reduce tax burden on business -- small and large. Only by reducing the direct costs of employment can you improve the odds of businesses hiring more people. Until then, everything is just a Band-Aid.

JIM O'REILLY, MINNEAPOLIS

MARK KINDERWATER, NEW BRIGHTON

The Star Tribune's Nov. 29 front-page article "Charter program is 'out of control'" discussed the building program Minnesota's charter schools are engaged in financed by so called "junk bonds."

In particular, the article mentioned charter school St. Croix Academy's new $21.7 million high school in Stillwater.

It is interesting to note that the new public school built in Woodbury, East Ridge, was completed about the same time as the new St. Croix Academy, to educate a similar number of students.

• East Ridge is 380,000 square feet vs. St. Croix Academy's 93,000 square feet. That is 211 square feet per student at East Ridge vs. 84 square feet at St. Croix Academy.

• East Ridge has a 950-seat performing arts center and a football stadium with artificial turf.

At a fraction of the operating costs of traditional public schools, the existing St. Croix Academy scored 80 percent proficient on math and 88 percent proficient on reading during the latest statewide tests compared with the average for Minnesota schools of 64 percent and 72 percent.

It is also interesting to note that the Star Tribune has expressed no problem with the Minneapolis School District building a new administration center at a cost of some $100 million to house its over 500 administrative employees (not teachers) while running a $19 million deficit. The Minneapolis School District's operating cost per student ($15,000) is more than twice the cost of St. Croix Academy.

WILLIAM A. COOPER, WAYZATA

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SEAN FOLEY, RICHFIELD

I live in Bloomington, so I guess I will get no more direct benefit from the new commuter line than the writer of the Nov. 29 Letter of the Day ("With Northstar, it's taxpayers who are taken for a ride"). But the complaint about cost echoes what we read about the Hiawatha light-rail line, and certainly will hear about each step forward we take on mass transit. Ignoring inflation, population growth and resulting future need, almost nothing we do could make economic sense.

I wonder what residents of New York, Chicago and many other large cities would say if we were to suggest they didn't need their mass transit systems and that they cost too much. I wonder how many residents at the time such systems were built had similar complaints.

This is totally consistent with the prevalence in our culture of failing to consider the needs of future generations.