Letters to the editor
Share with others:
I'm disgusted with the entire leadership in Pennsylvania. How can you set a budget with anticipated revenue not yet existing (I-80 tolls) ("No Tolls for I-80 Leaves Huge Gap," April 7)? It seems that even if state leaders got that, they'd be back next year looking for more ways to extract and spend.
Now the teachers' pensions are unstable and looking for taxpayers to bail them out. No one is going to bail out our 401(k)s or IRAs after they were reduced due to market collapse.
Now more officials are being brought up on political charges. Where does it all stop?
If history has shown us anything, it is that greed and corruption have been the downfall of all mighty empires. Look at how many of our states are in the same sad situations, which could lead to what our Founding Fathers said could happen. They left the door open to revising our government through the power of the people. Just read the preamble to the Constitution.
We need to raise our standards and again be a beacon to the world.
EDWARD F. WOJCIAK
North Huntingdon
Paying our way
The most troubling element of your editorial "Troubled Decision: Without I-80 Tolls, the State Faces Difficult Choices" (April 12) is the glaring ignorance of how highways are funded.
Out-of-state truckers do not now, nor have they ever, received a free lunch passing through Pennsylvania! Those trucks pay fuel taxes and license fees for every mile they run in Pennsylvania -- every mile! It is the money that trucks pay that allowed I-80 to be constructed and that corridor to be developed with businesses and jobs for state residents.
Not only do trucks pay their way in Pennsylvania, they pay even more in federal excise taxes for roads and bridges that the commonwealth has greatly benefited from during the past 25 years.
The problem isn't that trucks (and cars, too) don't pay enough. The problem is the desire of lawmakers and governors (past and present) to divert the money paid by, and for, highway users, to other purposes. Act 44 was not an artful compromise -- it was the looter mentality on steroids and the height of irresponsible transportation spending.
When the special legislative session convenes, the first words from Gov. Ed Rendell and others in the Legislature should be an apology for so grossly mismanaging the highway funds they were entrusted with -- and a sincere pledge to make it right.
First Published April 20, 2010 12:00 am
