Printed on 6/5/08
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Week 9, 2006
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Dear Friends and Supporters,
By being on my email list you know that I send dozens of articles that have been forwarded to me that cause me to think about the issue being addressed by the original author. This past week I forwarded an article written by a black pastor from Los Angeles, Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson, who was a witness to the aftermath of Katrina. His essay is posted on the September 21, 2005 www.WorldNetDaily.com.
I did not add any personal comment and did not endorse his views. I meant to place a disclaimer notice at the top of the email, but late on Sunday afternoon, I mistakenly forgot to do that. I take full responsibility for not placing this disclaimer. I am sorry that his racial comments meant that I believe the same. I do not.
I am currently under heavy attack for having forwarded this mans thoughts and opinions and I need to let you know that all of his views are not my views. In my scanning of his article I did notice that he was addressing issues that are of concern to us, including personal accountability, misuse of government funds and the growing trend toward entitlement.
A core value of the Republican philosophy is for people that can't take care of themselves to receive a hand-up, not a perpetual handout. It concerns me that since our "Great Society Programs" of the 60's, our national debt has grown to $8 trillion dollars, partly due to government handouts and entitlements. The welfare handouts reach out to any race and it is not a racial issue as some would like to portray.
I have serious concerns about the educational opportunities of those who are unable to send their children to a school of their choice due to the fact that they cannot afford it. The Mayor of Washington, D.C. told me about 3 years ago that Washington, D.C. must go to a voucher or a tax credit system so that the children can get a good education. The teachers unions and government run education system, where about 90% of the students go, has not given every child educational opportunities. This is a serious national problem.
I read recently that the Denver Public Schools have a drop out rate of 65%! It was only two years ago that we tried to get a voucher system set up for those schools that are inadequate, but the legislation failed by one vote on three different times in the House. Virtually all of the Democrats voted against a voucher system along with about 6 Republicans.
It is time for Colorado and the rest of the nation to give the students and parents choice in their education. Excellent administrators and teachers are in many of our public schools and I do not mean to minimize that. We all know that education opportunities result in a higher earning power, thus less dependence on government handouts. Government does not have money. Government has to take it from you first in the form of taxes.
It is a fact that we are teaching evolutionary thinking in almost all of our public schools when it can be proven from science that "macro" evolution cannot work. When we teach our children in our schools that they evolved from some animal and a "soup" 4.2 billion years ago and then mix it with graphic sex education in some of our schools, why would we expect them to live moral lives?
These statements led me to forward the article, not out of any racial motivation but from the aspect of general morality issues that I have been promoting for years.
Colorado has 31 adult prisons with almost 22,000 inmates at a cost of $28,000 a year for each prisoner. We are building 3 more. We also have 10 youth prisons. All of the county jails on the Front Range are completely full. The cost of incarceration and the victims of crime is a very large burden to our society. Only 20 years ago, prisons were 3% of our budget and now it is over 10%. Governmental policies should guide people toward good moral character. This will not completely solve the problem of crime, but it would help.
I hope that those who disagree with Rev. Peterson or his statistics would contact him and ask him to defend his positions. I cannot defend all of his statements and just passed them along as food for thought, just as a newspaper or magazine may do.
Respectfully,
Rep. Jim Welker
HD 51 - Loveland
By being on my email list you know that I send dozens of articles that have been forwarded to me that cause me to think about the issue being addressed by the original author. This past week I forwarded an article written by a black pastor from Los Angeles, Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson, who was a witness to the aftermath of Katrina. His essay is posted on the September 21, 2005 www.WorldNetDaily.com.
I did not add any personal comment and did not endorse his views. I meant to place a disclaimer notice at the top of the email, but late on Sunday afternoon, I mistakenly forgot to do that. I take full responsibility for not placing this disclaimer. I am sorry that his racial comments meant that I believe the same. I do not.
I am currently under heavy attack for having forwarded this mans thoughts and opinions and I need to let you know that all of his views are not my views. In my scanning of his article I did notice that he was addressing issues that are of concern to us, including personal accountability, misuse of government funds and the growing trend toward entitlement.
A core value of the Republican philosophy is for people that can't take care of themselves to receive a hand-up, not a perpetual handout. It concerns me that since our "Great Society Programs" of the 60's, our national debt has grown to $8 trillion dollars, partly due to government handouts and entitlements. The welfare handouts reach out to any race and it is not a racial issue as some would like to portray.
I have serious concerns about the educational opportunities of those who are unable to send their children to a school of their choice due to the fact that they cannot afford it. The Mayor of Washington, D.C. told me about 3 years ago that Washington, D.C. must go to a voucher or a tax credit system so that the children can get a good education. The teachers unions and government run education system, where about 90% of the students go, has not given every child educational opportunities. This is a serious national problem.
I read recently that the Denver Public Schools have a drop out rate of 65%! It was only two years ago that we tried to get a voucher system set up for those schools that are inadequate, but the legislation failed by one vote on three different times in the House. Virtually all of the Democrats voted against a voucher system along with about 6 Republicans.
It is time for Colorado and the rest of the nation to give the students and parents choice in their education. Excellent administrators and teachers are in many of our public schools and I do not mean to minimize that. We all know that education opportunities result in a higher earning power, thus less dependence on government handouts. Government does not have money. Government has to take it from you first in the form of taxes.
It is a fact that we are teaching evolutionary thinking in almost all of our public schools when it can be proven from science that "macro" evolution cannot work. When we teach our children in our schools that they evolved from some animal and a "soup" 4.2 billion years ago and then mix it with graphic sex education in some of our schools, why would we expect them to live moral lives?
These statements led me to forward the article, not out of any racial motivation but from the aspect of general morality issues that I have been promoting for years.
Colorado has 31 adult prisons with almost 22,000 inmates at a cost of $28,000 a year for each prisoner. We are building 3 more. We also have 10 youth prisons. All of the county jails on the Front Range are completely full. The cost of incarceration and the victims of crime is a very large burden to our society. Only 20 years ago, prisons were 3% of our budget and now it is over 10%. Governmental policies should guide people toward good moral character. This will not completely solve the problem of crime, but it would help.
I hope that those who disagree with Rev. Peterson or his statistics would contact him and ask him to defend his positions. I cannot defend all of his statements and just passed them along as food for thought, just as a newspaper or magazine may do.
Respectfully,
Rep. Jim Welker
HD 51 - Loveland
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