Federal money and Nevada’s future

Mark Wells, Las Vegas

Tuesday, Jan. 7, 2014 | 2:01 a.m.

Mr. President: We need to stop the millionaire governors who have blocked billions in free funding for the Affordable Care Act (in particular, the Southern states, such as Texas, Mississippi, Georgia, Louisiana, Florida and Alabama).

In Nevada, which is a “purple” state and definitely will be “blue” by 2016, we have changed for the better. The president can change the inhumanity the red-state Republicans have shown by simply calling them on their own proclamations. The governors are blocking billions of dollars from going to their states through the Affordable Care Act by saying, “We don’t need it.”

Mr. President, please call them on this. How? Simple; use your executive power to block all federal defense contractor money by the same amount in those states. If the people don’t need that money, then neither do the defense contractors who get billions. Give it to states like us.

I especially want to thank Sen. Harry Reid for changing the environment in Nevada that sets us on a course to be the most prosperously growing state in the country in the next decade.