Letters to the editor

Share with others:

Tweet

Businesses have prospered because of regulation

The American business community has spent, and is spending, billions of dollars to convince us that the United States must have a smaller government. ("Smaller government" is a code phrase for "keep all the things that make lots of money for us -- defense, war on drugs, agricultural subsidies, etc. -- but do away with all the agencies that regulate business.")

The business community tells us that business cannot prosper as long as it has to conform to regulations designed to protect the health and safety of workers, consumers, shareholders, patients, the environment, the USA and all that kind of stuff. That presents us with a paradox: If governmental regulation is crippling business and industry to the degree those guys say it is, where are the business guys getting all the money they're spending to convince us they are suffering?

The truth is that business has flourished under governmental regulation and that the super-rich/super-powerful 1 percent were able to accumulate obscene amounts of cash as long as they were controlled by governmental regulation.

Furthermore, the evidence suggests that this has happened not in spite of regulation but because of regulation: As long as regulations were imposed, business prospered, but the collapse of regulation brought us the collapse of the banking industry, the collapse of the real-estate market, the stock-market debacle and other worse things that have yet to come.

As the old saying goes, "Dance with the one you came with." It was governmental oversight that brought us to where we were before ideology obliterated horse sense. So, thank you, I'll continue to dance with oversight ... and I'll vote accordingly.

PAUL A. ALTER
Wilkinsburg

More jobs progress

Relating to "Federal Bill Would Help Unemployed Veterans Land Jobs" (Nov. 10), I want to urge Congress to continue making progress by also directly investing in creating family-sustaining jobs.

In 2008, my job manufacturing designer wood blinds was outsourced and my company moved abroad. Many of my co-workers and I have been searching for work for the last three years, and we have not been able to acquire decent jobs since the day we walked out of the plant for the last time.

One of my co-workers -- one of the most successful of the bunch -- got a job serving prepared food at Giant Eagle after her run at our company (12 years and counting) was cut short.

As the cost of living becomes more and more oppressive, and as the future for the unemployed/underemployed continues to be very uncertain, I want to see Congress work together to increase the number of decent work opportunities available to us, not by throwing even more money at robber barons but by creating jobs in infrastructure. Not only do infrastructure improvements put people ranging from construction workers to engineers to work, but infrastructure investments also spur manufacturing.

Our country contains so many capable and willing workers. We just need the opportunity to work and to revive our economy in the process.

MAURICE WILSON
Penn Hills

Shame on us all

The "supercommittee" failed. Anyone surprised? This Congress can't agree on anything; it's a wonder its members can decide on which way to turn the doorknob to the chamber.

To the 1 percent, who enjoy all the perks of the holidays and ignore the nightly news (with stories of foreclosures, layoffs and starving people), then stuff their faces with turkey and moan about the condition of the roads, bridges, schools and so on, but cry "Don't raise our taxes!";

To the "voters," who complain about everything but push the button over and over for the same old, same old;

To those in Alabama, who pushed to drive out the illegals but moan now that Americans can't/won't work the state's farm fields (probably for very low wages);

To the parents, who expect Johnny or Jeannie to do better but elect people who cut services in education funding and who say "Don't touch our defense spending!";

To the self-centered "babies," who see it and "have to have it" (but won't give anyone else any);

To the bankers, who hold onto "our" money (but don't lend any to those "deadbeat" customers);

To the employers, who squeeze all the work they can from their employees (and don't hire those "lazy people" who can't/won't get a job;

To the "Bible thumpers" whose churches tell them that the Republican way is the "Christian" way (the Democrats must be immoral and/or lazy):

This is what we brought upon ourselves. Aren't you ashamed? You should be!

JEFF BEARLEY
Overbrook

South Side mess

With reference to "South Side Seeking Monitors for Night" (Nov. 14): I would like to know how much more the residents of South Side are going to be asked to endure. Assess funds from residents to clean up the mess -- are you joking? Who allowed my neighborhood to become party town?

The inmates are truly running this asylum.

JoANN JONES
South Side

Transit riders, the time is now to formulate a backup plan

Dearly beloved transit rider ... it's house-in-order time.

Pittsburgh is a transit-riders' town. With such a high percentage of workers and the public using public transportation, you know transit and the economy are joined at the hip.

Remember those drastic cuts this past spring? There's worse trouble ahead. We can anticipate those cuts will be nothing compared to what is coming now that Harrisburg has made it clear that a solution to the state's transportation funding crisis is not a priority. So, unfortunately, it's time we all start planning for a drastically smaller transit system.

Is weekend transit service important to you, or perhaps your employees? How about weekday evenings and nights? That's right. These are the depth of service cuts the Port Authority of Allegheny County has no choice but to begin planning to deploy in the face of our funding crisis.

The irony is that elected officials -- who believe raising revenue for roads and transit will hurt the economy -- are rendering our economy a calamitous blow by starving its lifeblood: affordable mobility that links us to opportunity, to jobs, to health care, to living. Public transportation is at the heart of our shared prosperity.

The Nov. 29 article "Port Authority Braces for Another Slash to Service" is a must read for all who -- or whose employees -- depend on the bus or the T. We have about a 10-month window to contingency plan. Van and carpools, 4/10 work weeks, bike commuting, telecommuting, new parking accommodations are among strategies to consider now.

Our advance warning is here. It's time to get our transit backup plan in order. We all, riders and our economy, depend on it.

COURT GOULD
Executive Director
Sustainable Pittsburgh
Downtown
ERNIE HOGAN
Executive Director
Pittsburgh Community Reinvestment Group
Hill District
JEREMY WALDRUP
President and CEO
Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership
Downtown

Republicans have become extreme; Democrats have not

PG executive editor David M. Shribman in "Culprits Behind Today's Polarized Politics" (Nov. 20) proclaims that Democrats as well as Republicans are solidly on one side or the other in the political spectrum. I say "baloney."

Were that true, Barack Obama would have easily passed a single-payer health care program. Instead, the Affordable Care Act was bastardized time and again so it could be passed into law, because Mr. Obama could not get solid consensus from Democratic representatives. The truth, Mr. Shribman, is that, by and large, Democrats have moved toward the middle while Republicans have moved to the extreme right. Nevertheless, you can't even be a middle-of-the-road Democrat without being called "socialist" or "communist."

We are in desperate need of jobs: job incomes that would provide taxes to help pay the deficit, jobs that would boost the economy with private sector purchases, etc. The stimulus didn't work, say conservatives. "Bull-crap," I say; the stimulus helped to keep the world's economies from spiraling into oblivion. Truth is, it didn't work well because there wasn't enough of it.

Republicans, now so concerned about the debt, cared nothing about debt when they voted for two wars and cut taxes at the same time. Check history: NO nation has ever gone to war and cut taxes until George W. Bush. Could it be that this was not stupidity on Republicans' part, but a continuation of the plan to starve government so conservatives could force the destruction of public safety nets? Yes, indeed, that's just what it could be!

JOHN BROBST
Bradford Woods

The student loan vote-buying scheme

Regarding "College Aid: Obama's Plan Eases the Debt of Education" (Nov. 1): Your editorial page once again republishes the Obama administration's talking points rather than looking at the consequences of the action. College costs are rising precisely because they are subsidized.

The payment schedule proposed in Barack Obama's bill rewards students who choose high-priced universities and then accept low-paying jobs and punishes students who choose low-priced universities and accept higher-paying jobs. Success is punished and poor decisions are rewarded.

This bill is nothing more than a vote-buying scheme targeted to President Obama's supporters. If a student is going to pay 10 percent of his income to student loans regardless of whether the degree costs $40K or $100K, why would he care what it costs? Answer: He wouldn't care.

JEFF SCHROEFFEL
Carrick

About Gov. Corbett's priorities

Regarding the Nov. 23 article "Corbett Supports Insurance Exchange for State" : Why would a Republican promoter of free markets endorse a socialistic program that will create a massive new bureaucracy, put big government in charge of medical insurance design and force citizens to buy insurance through Harrisburg?

The answer is simple. Gov. Tom Corbett will make sure that design and oversight committees are staffed with insurance industry proponents. The result will be an exchange built and operated to ensure the growth and profitability of the industry. Committee members will be appointed by politicians, whose campaigns are funded by insurance companies. Committee policies will determine which companies can participate, what benefits will be offered and which companies will remain in the exchange over time. Sounds like a recipe for corruption, doesn't it?

The opportunity to ensure the financial success of the insurance industry seems to be more important to Mr. Corbett than his chest-thumping promise to eliminate government bureaucracy. In other words, he's a Big Supporter of Big Government if it subsidizes Big Business with Big Money for politicians.

JAY LYNCH
Upper St. Clair

Illicit drugs and personal freedom

Bloomberg News Washington executive editor Albert R. Hunt's Nov. 22 column highlights the important problem of swelling prison populations ( "We Should Take Fewer Prisoners: The U.S. Locks Up Far More People Than Other Countries," Perspectives). However, Mr. Hunt fails to mention the single most important action that could be taken today to reduce this problem: decriminalization of illicit drugs.

Imprisonment for exercising the right to one's own body is tantamount to a wholesale assault on individual rights and restricts liberty. These laws have no place in a country that embraces freedom.

AMESH A. ADALJA, M.D.
Butler

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.