Text Size:
A|
A|
A
Email
PrintThe SCHIP cigarette tax hike would be a win/win
In his rebuttal "Setting the Record Straight" (Oct. 19), U.S. Rep. John Peterson parrots a Republican talking point in opposing a cigarette tax increase to pay for the State Children's Health Insurance Program bill vetoed by President Bush. His rationale is that smokers tend to be poor, and so raising the tax on a product they tend to buy is unfair. It is curious that Republicans seem to express concern about the economic plight of the poor only when it coincides with their own political interests, along with the business interests of a source of campaign funds, in this case the tobacco industry.
Opposing a cigarette tax increase is misguided. The federal tax of 39 cents per pack has not kept up with price increases by the tobacco industry.
Also, this is a voluntary tax paid only by those who buy a product unnecessary for (and even hostile to) life. Increasing the tax will encourage smokers of all incomes to quit (and children not to start), a change that will reduce health-care costs and lost productivity. Thus, raising the cigarette tax would enhance public health even if the government flushed the tax revenue down the drain. Because it was intended to increase children's access to health care, this tax is a "win/win" solution if there ever was one.
The irony is that cigarettes often cost less than medications to help smokers quit. Rather than worrying about how poor smokers will afford cigarettes, Rep. Peterson should worry about how poor smokers can afford medications to help them quit.
KENNETH PERKINS, Ph.D.
Squirrel Hill
The writer conducts research at the University of Pittsburgh on tobacco dependence.
Faulty analogy
In her column justifying Duquesne University's interference with WDUQ's accepting sponsorship from Planned Parenthood, Ruth Ann Dailey uses an analogy with her newspaper that conveniently omits an important distinction between the two ("When Missions and Money Collide," Oct. 22). Her newspaper is a private profit-making business whose owners are free to ideologically screen their advertisers.
WDUQ, insofar as it is a conduit for National Public Radio, is supposed to be an independent nonprofit public radio station whose owners are the listeners who pay the bills. Those owners expect their public airways to be open to all points of view and cast their votes 100-to-1 against Duquesne in their phone calls to the station, which I helped answer during the pledge drive.
I was raised Catholic and graduated from a Catholic college, but I do not want a church ideological litmus test applied to what I hear on public radio, whether it is news or sponsor messages, and I will not support the station as long as it is under Duquesne's new Bob Jones mentality.
GEORGE McGEE
Marshall
Public difference
In response to the Oct. 22 column "When Missions and Money Collide" by Ruth Ann Dailey: There is a distinct difference between public radio and commercial stations/newspapers. Public radio is beholden to the public. The latter are under private ownership and answer to those who own them.
A private company is entitled to make those decisions regarding content, but the public airwaves are to remain without prejudice. I do not believe that WDUQ, as it is held under a Catholic institution, is capable of operating with complete objectivity (recent activities are a good example). The purpose of public radio is to air all beliefs, not subjugate a belief, whether it be liberal, conservative or morally incompatible with our own.
I expect censorship due to religious reason to remain out of National Public Radio and its affiliates. If we, the public, feel Planned Parenthood's statements are out of line, then we will make the judgments, not the church, regarding such.
ANTOINETTE DAVIS
Greenfield
More insults
Your approval of Rob Rogers' Oct. 22 cartoon again reveals your newspaper's passive-aggressive reproach to people of the Catholic faith. Mr. Rogers' lack of creativity to ink a banal parody of the sacrament of penance while defiling Catholic clergy and Catholics in juxtaposition with a bumper sticker of an organization that openly supports abortion is disrespectful.
Catholics are fair game?
The PG's last recollected attempt at Catholic-bashing was Rob Rogers' disrespectful cartoon of Pope Benedict upon his election as pope, wherein the Holy Father was improperly inked as stamping out the grapes of human rights. Such insults by your newspaper can only be sustained by your editorial board's infantile and prejudicial understanding of the Catholic Church and its teachings. Before Mr. Rogers' next Catholic-bashing parody have him read the pope's encyclical "God Is Love." Then have him report to work.
Regrettably, the PG's support of the popular culture of death and abortion inevitably puts its editorial staff in the same place as its newspaper -- the trash can.
Next time, have Mr. Rogers challenge his faithless disability by inking a parody of Christopher Hitchens and his atheistic ilk eating your newspaper in hell while an abortionist recites the Hippocratic oath while looking at a bumper sticker that says "All human life is precious in the eyes of God."
W. ROY CRUM
Greenfield
Against the grain
There has been quite a reaction to Duquesne University's refusal of sponsor money to National Public Radio affiliate WDUQ from a group whose message differs from the core beliefs of the Catholic Church ("WDUQ Pulls Planned Parenthood Spots," Oct. 13).
If it goes so against the grain of the church to accept money from those who do not share its basic tenets, I would suggest that it refuse at least 50 percent of the envelopes put into collection baskets during each Mass. I believe it is safe to say that at least this percentage of Catholics in the United States strongly differ with their church on issues like contraception, ordination of women, a married priesthood, papal infallibility and especially the church's past inaction with respect to child abuse within its own hierarchy.
If, in refusing advertising from Planned Parenthood, the church is trying not to be hypocritical, it may want to require that its members sign a "loyalty oath" akin to the one citizens were required to sign to attend Bush/Cheney speeches during the last election. That way, the church would not be in danger of taking support from someone with different values and beliefs, even within its own flock.
JAN PATTERSON DASCHBACH
Collier
Crisis opportunities
As a native Pittsburgher who reads up on local issues on a daily basis via the Internet, I found Dan Simpson's column "Ruling Pittsburgh" (Oct. 17) to be the most refreshing piece published in a long time.
I am also old enough to distinguish the "Old Pittsburgh" from the "New Pittsburgh" and frankly I miss the old, vibrant one. The "Old Dirty Pittsburgh" had well over 600,000 residents and it was the headquarters for Fortune 500 companies (despite the industrial collapse in the 1980s) such as Alcoa, Dravo, Gulf Oil and Mellon Financial, which have, unfortunately, exited since.
If the city does not wake up soon, and it has the infrastructure, manpower and brainpower to do so, it could very well be, as a former mentor of my father at Westinghouse once said: "Toledo with a football team."
Going forward, no matter which party holds power, it cannot be "business as usual." This is a time of crisis, which, paradoxically, brings with it a myriad of opportunities.
ROBERT PENMAN
Cambridge, Mass.
Killers live on, while many of us continue to suffer from their actions
The Oct. 12 column by Ellen Goodman ("Death Watch") and other recent comments about the American Bar Association study of the death penalty fail to see the point regarding the victims of violent crimes.
Does anyone ever consider the taxpaying, law-abiding citizens who are the victims of senseless crime? My husband was gunned down in his place of business by a career criminal 18 months out of jail. Should the victim's family care how his death sentence is carried out?
Did he care that he took a good man away from a wife and family? What about the effects of his crime on those left behind? Thirteen years after a crime, the pain does not go away while the guilty sit in prison getting fed and clothed and "living" and a good husband, father and grandfather lies 6 feet under. I care little what color this man is ... I care only that he shattered lives. Did he worry about the pain he inflicted then and now? Why should we?
The death penalty is not genocide. Yes, it is killing, but only after heinous crimes have been perpetrated by others. Maybe, if the sentences pronounced by juries were carried out, it would give pause to those who do such evil.
JUDY BERGER
Mt. Lebanon
We welcome your letters. Please include your name, address and phone number, and send to Letters to the Editor, 34 Blvd. of the Allies, Pittsburgh 15222. E-mail letters to letters@post-gazette.com or fax to 412-263-2014. Letters should be 250 words or less, original and exclusive to the Post-Gazette. All letters are subject to editing for length, clarity and accuracy and will be verified before being published.
