Justin M. Ruhge

The May 15, 2019, Lompoc budget workshop was another seance in budget perfidy. The “triad” of Lompoc City Councilmembers Jim Mosby, Dirk Starbuck, and Victor Vega were at it again, nickel-and-diming the budget to get it cut so it will be balanced—again at the cost of city services—but refusing to directly consider a 1 percent […]

The pressing issues before us in the national election for president are the same as we voters and taxpayers all face at the local levels. Shortage of jobs, less income, higher deficits, and more taxes are driving the selection of candidates in the up-and-coming local elections as at the national level. Unless we as voters […]

The pressing issues before us in the national elections for president are the same as we voters and taxpayers all face at the local levels. A shortage of jobs, less income, higher deficits, and more taxes are driving the selection of candidates in the up-and-coming local elections as at the national level. Unless we as […]

We are dismayed at just what the Hillary Clinton Democratic State Department is doing in the Middle East in their foreign policy under the direction of the Obamanation in the White House. They pretend to be promoting democracy, but the net result of all their actions to date is to promote Islamic radicalism and the […]

I was surprised at the balance in your article “Out of Iraq” (Jan. 5) from a liberal media like the Sun. However, some comments are still deserved. We did not go to war in Iraq over oil; we get only 5 percent from them today; before, 0 percent. The WMD were believed in by the […]

In publishing the recent commentary “What is more important?” (Nov. 3), your paper is maintaining its reputation of a far-left liberal blab. The commentary illustrates the fuzzy-headed thinking of the liberal writer who tries to tie oil development and marijuana sales together. Oil development and production produces jobs and wealth and pays taxes and retirement […]

The problem with county civil service benefits (“Mind the gap,” April 8) is that they are way beyond what the private sector gets and can afford, yet it is the private sector that  pays the taxes for the county benefits. The basic problem is due to two factors: the civil service unions who support and […]

The misguided liberal religious cult of environmentalists in California and their political supporters—like Lois Capps, Dianne Feinstein, Barbara Boxer, Pedro Nava, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, et al—do not speak for everyone in California. The majority of Californians support offshore drilling for oil. We also support such drilling in the Florida Everglades, the Gulf of Mexico, ANWR, […]

My God, do we miss President George W. Bush. What we have now is not our kind of America. What we want is prosperity, not socialism!

We have the best medicine in the world because the American free-enterprise capitalist system developed it. Let’s not ruin it with socialism.   Medicare is a good example of what not to do. It costs too much, seniors older than 75 like ourselves are forced to use it, we are forced to pay for it […]

We have the best medicine in the world because the American free enterprise, capitalist system developed it. Let’s not ruin it with socialism.   Medicare is a good example of what not to do. It cost too much; seniors older than 65, like ourselves, are forced to use it; we are forced to pay for […]