I strongly disagree with your endorsement of the tuition privilege tax ("College Try: It's Not Ideal, But the Tuition Tax Is Fair Game," Nov. 11).

Mayor Luke Ravenstahl justifies his proposed tax by claiming that "there is a tremendous amount of service that we provide already to these college students -- police protection, fire protection, building inspectors," for which the mayor thinks the students aren't contributing their fair share.

Mr. Ravenstahl is perhaps unaware of the General Assembly's Legislative Budget and Finance Committee March 2009 report on "Tax-Exempt Property and Municipal Fiscal Status." This report details the many ways that the University of Pittsburgh contributes financially to the city.

For example, the university spends about $7 million per year to support its police services, providing service to the Oakland neighborhood with more than 40 percent of the calls unrelated to university students. The report states that "the city of Pittsburgh would need to increase its police force by about 10 percent to replace the university's current uniformed force."

Mr. Ravenstahl's argument that students should be responsible for the cost of building inspectors to inspect the buildings they rent is spurious. The owners of these apartment buildings already pay property and business taxes to the city from their profits from the rent they charge the students; thus the students have already, indirectly, paid their fair share toward building inspection services.

The likely outcome of a tuition tax would be a reduction in the number of students entering our universities and colleges, which would have a negative financial impact on the city and region.

DANIEL E. WEEKS
Squirrel Hill

On shaky ground

Mayor Luke Ravenstahl will assure that the city will wind up losing money if the city tries to enact a tuition tax on higher education in Pittsburgh that is clearly unfair and probably illegal. Even a cursory look at the Local Tax Enabling Act, the state legislation upon which this proposed tax is based, will demonstrate that the levy stands on very shaky legal ground and will undoubtedly be the target of multiple lawsuits from every institution of higher learning in the city. The city will waste its money on legal fees and the tax will be thrown out in court.

Solving the city's revenue problems will take a lot more than this shortsighted approach. The ultimate solution will come only with some type of city-county merger and/or consolidation of services. Going after the nonprofits is also potentially worthwhile, but this will happen only with help from Harrisburg.

ROBERT HOFFMAN
Point Breeze

The Carrick branch

In the Oct. 28 Post-Gazette, Bob Hoover wrote a piece profiling the libraries that are in danger of closing or being merged ("Trimming Branches"). As someone who was born and raised in Carrick and still returns there every other weekend, I found the description of the Carrick branch left something to be desired.

Carrick is still a very nice section of the city, and it received what I felt was short shrift in the article. The Carrick branch of the Carnegie Library is located diagonally from a karaoke bar; however, there are many other establishments in the area that could also have been mentioned. For instance, within a block or two on each side of the library are the following: Roosevelt Elementary School, Caruso's Music Store, Esther's Sweet Shop, Concord Presbyterian Church, Sky Bank, St. Basil Church and Boron Funeral Home among others.

Every time I have visited this library I have found the staff to be very helpful. While there is certainly nothing wrong with karaoke bars, that is not the only business close to the Carrick branch.

DAVID H. STANLEY
Greensburg

It kills motivation

In the debate over socialism, much is said about how it will chill investment by lessening the reward aspect of the risk/reward relationship inherent in business. Nothing seems to be said about its effect on the least productive. Most people do the bare minimum needed to avoid termination. Yet so too does socialism remove the risk of failure from the least productive. If drawing breath is all that is required to be given someone else's money, then what motivation is there to do even the bare minimum?

Liberals love to tell conservatives that morality cannot be legislated. If this is so, then I would say that character traits like intelligence, ambition, common sense and work ethic cannot be legislated as well and these traits have far more to do with both a person's financial success than does class, race, gender, religion, sexuality or any other characteristic that liberals harp on as root causes of inequality.

While it would seem that most liberals don't consider this, I'm convinced they do. What politician wouldn't love a large part of the electorate to need to come to them with their hats in their hands and their votes in their hats?

AARON M. BARR
Penn Hills

Reverse course

For once I agree with Thomas L. Friedman -- almost, that is ("Call Us, We Won't Call You," Nov. 10). Perhaps he is correct in this recommendation to end diplomatic efforts, but it doesn't go far enough. It might have a chance of working if we also pull out the financial and military assistance, both overt and covert, that we are dumping into Israel and the surrounding territories. This is really what is sustaining the enmity in the region and permitting the illusion to persist that peace is possible under current circumstances.

As long as Israel can count wholeheartedly on our support for political, economic and military dominance and as long as the Palestinians know that resources will continue to flow, there is no incentive for peace. Cut off the flow of funds and it will be interesting to see just how quickly a mutuality of local interest for peace can develop. We throw hundreds of billions of dollars of taxpayer money down this rat hole every year with no discernible positive impact. Why not reverse course for a change? But no one here -- particularly the political class -- really wants to do that. There is too much private-sector money to be made from sustaining an eternal conflict in the region.

We are no longer the nation most of us like to believe we are. The United States depends almost exclusively on a war-based economy, and peace in the Middle East might actually represent the greatest external threat to our economic stability -- such as it is.

JOHN E. HEMINGTON JR.
McMurray

Dancing ability

I'm responding to the article "Point Park Denies Existence of 'Fat List' for Dancers" (Oct. 29). Pressure to stay thin is a big deal for young ladies, especially dancers. Dancing industries are telling adolescents that it's OK to starve themselves in order to succeed. It makes me angry that the world has come down to this: What someone looks like is more important than your ability to do something.

I know the industry wants dancers to look a certain way, but if it is worried about them being bigger/unhealthy, wouldn't they be worried about them being super skinny or on the verge of eating disorders?

In the movie "Hairspray," Nikki Blonsky was a bigger individual. She did not let her weight get in the way of her dancing ability. These days, many young women are trying to fit in by staying thin and "beautiful." The pressure on the television, in magazines, and in everyday life takes a huge toll on these young girls. Many girls have resorted to eating disorders, which leads to depression or even death.

If you can dance, you can dance. The fact that people rely on looks rather then ability disgusts me. Everyone is beautiful in their own way.

ALEXA HAYES
Pine

The Fort Hood tragedy must not spur a witch hunt

After the senseless killings of our soldiers at Fort Hood, the commentators of the various cable sources and blogs have been quick to instill fear that all Muslims in the Armed Forces may have an agenda and demand a vetting process.

This in itself is an insult to all Muslim-sounding names of Americans serving today in the war zones and around the world.

Speaking of the proverbial slippery slope, where does it end? Should we then start demanding questioning of Hispanic-sounding names to check their "papers"? Doesn't Lou Dobbs insist that certain Hispanic groups want to take back their land? How do we check the backgrounds of those who have already given up their lives and are buried at Arlington? Where will it stop?

On May 11, Sgt. John M. Russell killed five soldiers at Camp Liberty in Iraq. I challenge any of your readers to find a media report listing his religious or ethnic background. It was never part of the story. If we discover he was a Christian, do we then vet all Christians?

I ask that true journalists of the media challenge these purveyors of doom and allow the investigation to run its course before trying to sell some more gold and achieve higher ratings.

God bless those who have died for our country.

JOE BRANCATO
Whitehall

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