Who will benefit? Of course, no matter how repairs are funded, the people of Nebraska will benefit.

Who will pay? Taxpayers will be the target. Farmers, housewives, salespeople, business people, businesses, commuters, truck drivers, law enforcement, anyone who drives for work or pleasure.

Right now, there are many new faces in our Unicameral. Every new senator wants to be responsible for legislation that has a positive effect on the people of this great state. Always in the past it has been the policy of the Old Legislature to throw money at a problem. Where does that money come from? It comes from the pockets of the taxpayers of the state of Nebraska. I agree that the condition of Nebraska highways is becoming deplorable. However, as a Nebraska taxpayer I feel it is essential our New Legislature realize that more taxes is not always the answer to this problem. Even though some of you will not be part of the Legislature next year, I still look at you as the New Legislature.

As you may know, Nebraskans already pay some of the highest fuel taxes in the nation and it is unfair to further that tax burden. If you look strictly at causation of damages to our roadways and bridges, you find that overweight vehicles and the increase in the amount of traffic has caused most of that damage, with weather damage being secondary. Currently, there is no way to get money from Mother Nature. I feel a more fair and economically sound direction of funding would be to increase speeding fines and overweight fines at least by double to pay for the damages.

This would not only greatly increase needed revenue, but could also ultimately save fuel and lives. If one would check with statistics from the Department of Roads, it is obvious that one of the biggest contributing factors to fatal crashes in the state of Nebraska is speed. Currently speeding fines are maxed out at $200, with a provision of a double fine when in either a construction or school zone. Overweight fines can be very costly ($10,000 +), but overweight vehicles can totally destroy a roadway or a bridge in a matter of a few minutes. If the fines for just those two violations were doubled and that extra amount is channeled into the Roads Department 's budget, the revenue increase would be substantial. There are statistics very readily available to see how much this type of increase would benefit the taxpayers of the state of Nebraska. It would also be more fiscally responsible in that it targets not just those that use the facilities the most but those that abuse it the most.

This may be oversimplifying things, but there really is no need to make things more complicated or expensive like Sen. Fischer's LB846 does.

Dan Astrones

2848 Goldenrod Drive

Birthday coverage was special

I wanted to thank The Grand Island Independent and KHAS-TV Channel News 5 for their terrific Leap Year coverage of Steve and David Moseman's "14th" birthday. The photo taken by Scott Kingsley was very nice and the article written by Harold Reutter was well written. Thanks for the front page coverage as well. That was indeed a surprise!

Dave with News 5 also did a very nice job broadcasting from the birthday party that evening. He was very professional and really made an effort to be "invisible." His work and KHAS-TV's willingness to cover the event were very much appreciated.

Thanks to you both! You did a terrific job!

Marilyn Moseman

318 W. 11th St.

Kleeb shows lack of respect for law

It was recently disclosed that United States Senate candidate Scott Kleeb has lost his driver's license for traffic violations. This is interesting given the fact he has been so highly touted as an up and coming political star during and after his unsuccessful run for House of Representatives in Nebraska's 3rd District.

In an obvious effort to deflect interest from his driver's license problems, he was quoted as saying, "I'm thinking we'll all be able to stay focused on the very important issues we're confronting," and cited the usual stuff, the war, the economy, and the health care system (Translation: we need to move on, or I need to change the subject fast.)

Given the public's almost total lack of confidence in Congress for obvious reasons including self-dealing, personal misconduct and criminal violations, one of the most important issues we are facing is to clean up Congress. We certainly do not need another member of Congress that lacks respect for law, shows poor judgment and does not even have the common sense to obey the speed limit to avoid the loss of driving privileges.

Citizens are entitled to have a United States Congress they can respect and it is absolutely necessary that voters consider past behavior and demand high standards of conduct in the selection of candidates regardless of political affiliation. This should rule out Scott Kleeb.

Sam Grimminger

2712 Sunnybrooke Road

Does ethanol really save money?

Tuesday's paper prints "Ethanol saves $5M." Well I splurged and got a new car, I used 10 percent ethanol and then regular gas. These are my findings after 10 tanks of gas (five of each.)

When I used 10 percent ethanol, I got 16 mph at $3.00 per gallon; it cost 18.75 cents per mile.

When I used regular gas at $3.10 per gallon, I got 18 mph or a cost of 17.22 cents per mile plus the increased price of the food supply (corn) making my steak, pork and chicken go up and the use of water and energy to produce the ethanol. Where am I saving?

It will take many years to convert our use of energy (gas). We do have 240 billion tons of recoverable coal reserves equal to 800 billion barrels of synthetic fuel. Germany used the Fisher Tropsch process to make fuel as early as 1920 and South Africa uses it to produce 150,000 barrels per day.

We need to get our head out of the sand and keep the jobs and oil money in the good old United States of America. Clean coal could reduce nitrous oxide, low emissions and low sulfur and aromatic content.

Log onto to Jet Blue Airways for an eye-opening report.

Bob Dawkins

4193 Norseman