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Pennsylvania's poor now face a new obstacle
Gov. Tom Corbett's assault on the people of Pennsylvania has reached a new low with his plan for the state's food stamp program.
Besides slashing millions from education and health care programs while refusing to tax his millionaire corporate donors, the governor has gutted welfare-to-work and job-training programs that helped people climb out of poverty. Now, he is going after a program that helped feed 1.8 million people last year. Talk about kicking them when they're down.
According to the state's plan, those 60 and younger with $2,000 in savings or other assets would be barred from receiving food stamps.
"Eliminating abuse" is a common excuse used to dismantle programs that help the poor, and the same tired refrain is in play here. It is impossible to argue: These programs are meant for people who actually need them. But a closer look shows that Pennsylvania's food stamp program has a fraud rate of a fraction of 1 percent. This is a cynical, counterproductive "solution" without a problem.
Saving money is one of the few ways for the poor to climb out of poverty and into the middle class. This scheme eliminates that possibility, punishing people for saving and guaranteeing the cycle of poverty will continue.
Not to mention that food stamps, while much maligned, actually work. In 2010, the program lifted nearly 4 million people in the United States out of poverty.
If we're not careful, soon the only state program left to lift people out of poverty will be the Pennsylvania Lottery.
R.J. HUFNAGEL
Emsworth
Tough job market
Mary Karscig's letter, "Helping Those Who Can't Find Work Benefits All" (Jan. 11), shows what a lot of us are going through, and how clear it is that we need to keep extended unemployment benefits in place.
I am currently seeking work, and I have been underemployed or unemployed for some time now. I was recently working at a convenience store for minimum wage, and I often worked 50 to 55 hours a week. I didn't receive any benefits because I was categorized as part-time. During the night shift, I have had to call in the police because of fights, drug dealers selling in the parking lot and a customer entering covered in blood, among other situations.
I was working there even though I have training in Internet security and computer information science and technology. I am 27 and had been working with computers for much of the last 11 years.
With a job climate like the one we've got, how could politicians possibly consider letting extended unemployment benefits disappear?
FRANK WHEELER
Jeannette
People pushing back
Increasingly, Republicans and their media allies accuse those in favor of equitable taxation and against corporate welfare of trying to start a class war.
However, this shameless display of chutzpah ignores the fact that, for the past 30 years, many of our corporations and wealthiest Americans have used the Republican Party to wage a relentless class war against workers.
What is new is that average Americans are now fighting back in the war that they did not begin.
STEPHEN C. OROSZ
Squirrel Hill
Outsource CEOs
I have a new solution for helping out those of us in the 99 percent. When it comes time to determine pay, benefits and bonuses we receive, the owner of the company we work for will no longer decide those rates; instead it will be a board made up of co-workers and others who work in similar type jobs. They will set the benefits and pay scale we receive.
What is that you say? That's nonsense? You think people would just give themselves unbelievable pay and benefits at the expense of the owner?
Well, that is exactly what happens now with the pay and benefits of senior executives at the expense of their employees. Their pay and benefits are established by a board that just happens to be made up of other CEOs and top executives from other firms and, by the way, in case you don't know, they all sit on each other's boards.
Look at Yahoo, for example. It just replaced its CEO after two years because of poor performance, and how much did she earn over those two years? More than $59 million, according to Security and Exchange Commission filings, including a $2 million performance bonus for the great job she was doing nine months before they fired her for poor performance, and that does not include whatever she received in her separation agreement.
It seems as if companies think they can outsource any regular worker's job to India, but not the executives. I bet there are more than a few MBAs over there who would love to run a company for a lot less than $59 million over two years. I'm betting you could find someone to do it for $150,000.
Then we could take the other $58,850,000 and put some people back to work.
RON LOWREY
Carrick
His first campaign
Henry Tomer's letter ( "Unfair to Santorum," Jan. 11) made the error of forgetting history.
Rick Santorum first got elected to Congress in 1990 by criticizing U.S. Rep. Doug Walgren for owning a home near Washington, D.C., and not living in the Pittsburgh area. But as soon as Mr. Santorum was elected to the U.S. Senate, he did the same, relocating his principal residence to suburban Virginia and maintaining a so-called "cottage" in Penn Hills.
He also stuck Penn Hills taxpayers with the tab for cyber-schooling his children elsewhere. Mr. Santorum lived the same lie of which he accused Mr. Walgren and accepted Penn Hills tax money under false pretenses.
For both these reasons, he actually is a hypocrite.
PATRICK BOYLE
Upper St. Clair
Re: qualifications
I was amused to see new job suggestions for the Republican presidential candidates in a Jan. 8 Issue One letter ( "Find Other Work" ), especially the suggestion for Rick Santorum. I was less amused by the writer's assertion that these people are not "qualified" for the job of president.
If a governor or speaker of the House (third in line for the presidency) or full-time U.S. senator is not "qualified," what does that make a part-time U.S. senator (since most of his term he spent campaigning for his new job) and neighborhood organizer?
I believe what disqualifies the Republicans to the writer in reality is her own politics and/or the fact these candidates are not Barack Obama -- and not anything the candidates bring to the political table.
In that vein, I would say that her candidate is not qualified for the job because he does not match my politics and/or he is Barack Obama. I would suggest he quit and become a full-time member of the Wall Street protesters group. Maybe then they'll be more focused on things other than being public nuisances and disrupting the 99 percent they profess to support.
JOHN D. BURTT
Upper St. Clair
The murder of Iranian scientists is nothing to be gleeful about
The recent assassination of a nuclear scientist in Iran has brought out the worst in some Americans.
Sean Hannity has proclaimed "whoever is involved in the killing of these Iranian nuclear scientists, God bless them" and also stated, "I wish we were involved."
To hear such statements, from a commentator on our airwaves, such as this is an embarrassment to all Americans. The killing of a person, maybe a father who is working for his country, because of his specific ability, is nothing but murder.
The scientist had every right to assist his country in developing nuclear power. Was it this individual person who determines the final use of the power? No. Was he a proud citizen of his country? Probably.
People like Mr. Hannity should be fired for advocating murder. Does Mr. Hannity believe that if a foreign government decides that scientists working on American inventions are too dangerous for their survival that murdering them is acceptable?
This man who was murdered is a person who was doing his job. To celebrate his assassination and to hope that America is involved is truly un-American and an insult to our country.
Mr. Hannity, why do you accept murder of a working man something positive? I'd like to speak to you about it in a public forum.
JOE BRANCATO
Whitehall
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First Published January 16, 2012 12:00 am
