Letters to the Editor
Published 1:30 am Friday, August 7, 2026
FIREFIGHTERS
Recognize the mobilization of local units
Of community interest, little is ever said in media about local Fire Fighters being mobilized to help.
More recently, local units were sent to Douglas County to assist fighting the McNeil Canyon fires, residents of the Chelan Hills neighborhood and then to the Okanogsn Valley. Just returned now mobilized for two more weeks to fight the Little Giant Fire near Lake Wenatchee …but not a peep from the Herald or the Seattle Times. Who thanks these folks who leave families to high risk service? They should receive special honor!
Sam Bess
Stanwood
TAXES
Millionaire contributions to our state
While critics often argue that Washington’s high-net-worth residents don’t pay their fair share due to our regressive tax structure, we must look at the absolute dollar scale of their contributions.
A tiny fraction of wealthy Washingtonians keeps our public infrastructure afloat. Look no further than the state’s 7% capital gains tax, which recently generated roughly $1.5 billion for schools and childcare from just over 9,000 taxpayers. That is a massive injection of capital coming from just 0.2% of the population.
Furthermore, these individuals are the primary drivers of our economy. As business owners and investors, they pay millions in gross-receipts B&O taxes and fund the private sector payrolls that employ hundreds of thousands of local workers—who then pay their own sales and property taxes.
Beyond taxes, our state’s world-class medical research centers, arts institutions, and food banks rely heavily on their concentrated philanthropy.
If aggressive new tax policies drive these top filers and their capital out of Washington, the loss to our state budget and local charities will be devastating. We cannot afford to alienate the economic engine that funds our communities.
Myron Phillips
Edmonds
IRAN
Some Herald readers and the behavior of ostriches
I don’t know if ostriches actually bury their heads in the sand, but this is a reasonable metaphor for some human behavior. In a recent letter, one reader asked as a rhetorical question whether we were afraid that Iran was going build a nuclear bomb and risk their entire country being incinerated.
If the reader had been following the actions by and statements from the mullahs in Iran over the past 47 years, he would know that the destruction of Iran was of little concern to them. That is, as long as the Great and Little Satans (the U. S. And Israel, respectively) were also destroyed. To that end, the mullahs and the IRGC had been steadily enrichening uranium and were probably within months of obtaining bomb-grade fissile materials. Add that to the fact that the range of their intermediate range ballistic missiles were already capable of travelling 2000 kilometers, something that was a complete surprise to the intelligence organizations that had been tracking the Iranian progress. Even without longer-range missiles, if the Iranians had managed to build a small nuke, it wouldn’t have been difficult to place one on a cargo ship and set off the bomb near a population center on the U. S. East Coast.
So, yes, we really should have been afraid that the mullahs and the IRGC would have gladly used a nuclear weapon against us, regardless of the consequences to their country.
Mark Parker
Snohomish
ELECTION
Time for change
James Madison in the Federalist Papers was worried about factions arising in the body politic. The Republic that was created with the Constitution was meant to provide a representative Government that would include protections from the “Tyranny of the Majority”. Unfortunately for the Citizens of Washington State with a Democratic majority that “Tyranny” is painfully obvious to the States Citizens. We just lived through the largest tax increases in our state’s history, including an unconstitutional income tax. Citizens raised millions of dollars to create and spent countless hours to pass an initiative to protect parental rights only to have the Legislature gut the portion of the law that protected parents and their children. CNN has rated Washington as one of the most expensive places to do business. Home grown businesses like Starbucks and Fisher Investments are now fleeing the State. The State is trying to borrow from State pension plans to finance their overspending, damaging the States’ credit rating. Two former Democratic Governors have said the State has a spending problem, not a revenue problem. Like the Declaration of Independence, the Legislature “has refused to assent to laws most wholesome and necessary for the public good”. Now is the time to elect a truly representative State government and ditch the party that is destroying our State.
Steve Baldwin
Snohomish
PRESIDENT
FDR got a fourth term, so why shouldn’t Trump?
In the leadup to his second term, Trump joked that he would be a “dictator on day one.” Nobody is laughing now. He hasn’t stopped dictating since day one.
Today Trump “jokes” with the press that he might win a “fourth” term of office in 2028.
Plenty of things suggest he is serious. First, he is re-building D.C. in his own image like lifetime kings did in their capital cities: renovating Dulles; bringing in the military to make the city safe; planning new monuments like the Arc de Trump and renovating old ones like the Reflecting Pool; hanging huge graven image banners of himself on government buildings.
Consider this. He is undertaking a billion-dollar East Wing renovation of his residence that won’t be completed until well after 2028.
He is taking more opportunities to show off his “Trump 2028” hat.
He is visiting the doctor a lot to try to get ahead of any chronic diseases that might befall him. Hmmm …
Kimball Shinkoskey
Woods Cross, Utah
