Letters to the editor
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I am in my 60s and part of the hard-working, spiritual and love-my-country crowd.
I am also a serial entrepreneur and developer of many small and successful taxpaying and employee-hiring businesses. As I watch our combined governments grow inefficiently and ineffectively larger, my anger and frustration grows.
After calculating my combined local, state and federal (plus hidden sales and possible value-added) taxes, I realize I may be paying close to or perhaps even more than 70 percent of my income in taxes. With much thought, I chose to close down my businesses and dismiss all employees.
Innovation, hard work and risk of capital must return more than a few percent after expenses and taxes.
WILLIAM F. REPACK
Moon
Taxes are forever
Name one thing Gov. Ed Rendell has done for Pennsylvania since being elected to office. I challenge you to come up with an answer other than raise taxes and irresponsibly spend our money.
Allow me to refresh your memory: He raised the state income tax during his first year in office and now proposes to raise it yet again. He does, however, promise to reduce the tax back to its current rate in three years. Who is he kidding? He will not even be in office then. And when can you ever recall any tax being rescinded? And he has increased spending by 40 percent over the past six years!
Too bad he was not as aggressive about recovering our money paid out in legislative staff bonuses. Those of us who'll be paying for this tax increase have learned to cut our budgets and spend less during this recession and state government should as well.
I suggest starting by cutting the salaries, retirement and benefits of the governor and legislators just like those of us who are fortunate enough to still have jobs have been forced to do. It's about time that the hard-working, taxpaying citizens of this state stand up to the governor and say "no more" loudly enough for both him and those legislators who will be seeking re-election to hear. Ed Rendell may no longer be governor in a year and a half, but we will be burdened by his taxes forever.
CINDY CAWLEY
Whitehall
Ridiculous tactics
In the classic movie "Ghostbusters," the eponymous heroes tell the mayor of New York City of all the impending danger of a city overrun with ghosts -- "Fire and brimstone, 40 years of darkness, the dead rising from the grave, human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together ... mass hysteria!"
Gov. Rendell has used "Ghostbusters" as the blueprint for his propaganda for higher taxes. He has claimed a version of the budget passed by the Pennsylvania Senate would require 800 state police to be let go and allow child predators to roam free. But this has little basis in fact.
Mr. Rendell has stated the Senate would cut $16 million from state police, when their budget reduces spending from the current year by only $4 million. The administration claims troopers would be laid off, but in recent testimony, the state police noted that they're not preparing for layoffs and have absorbed cuts in previous years.
Finally, Mr. Rendell has stated that any cut from the General Fund would have to be matched by a larger cut from the Motor License Fund (i.e. the gas tax, used for highway patrol). But there is no law that would require a matching cut -- it is in fact at Gov. Rendell's discretion!
The State Troopers Association was spot on when it called Mr. Rendell's rhetoric a "scare tactic." He would seem less ridiculous if he suggested a tax increase is needed to prevent dogs and cats from living together.
NATHAN A. BENEFIELD
Director of Policy Research
Commonwealth Foundation
Harrisburg
Unfair 'greening'
President Barack Obama has, since taking office, emphatically asserted that the health of the economy depends on the recovery of the housing market. So a question I pose to the president is "why include in the cap-and-trade bill the provision for mandatory 'greening' of your home before you can sell it?"
It seems to me that this will only stagnate the market, resulting in a waning economy.
At present, home buyers aren't able to acquire loans very easily from banks that had secured Troubled Asset Relief Program money for this very purpose. It will be even more difficult to attain these loans for homes that were forced to modernize, because now, the price of the homes will soar beyond the buyers' means, branding them a risk.
What worries me more is how Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., wants to handle the housing quandary. He recommends the same actions that led us here in the first place. He insists that the insolvent banks should grant TARP money to risky home loan applicants.
I can't grasp the fact that Bernie Madoff gets a life sentence for destroying several lives with his Ponzi scheme. Yet, Barney Frank, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae walk free for obliterating the global economy, which affects billions.
GEORGE JONES
Beechview
About job losses
It is good that letter writer Robert J. Reiland did some research on a complicated issue ("It Will Create Jobs," July 5 Issue One on climate legislation). However, he did not consider a number of aspects. The number of coal industry jobs are not all in the mines.
One example, coal must get to the power plants and this requires many truck and train operators and those methods create their own peripheral jobs. Power plants also have multiple jobs that are not directly related to the generation of power. Of specific interest: Studies show (one by the Spanish government, Spain being one of the leaders in wind power generation) for every job created by wind power, two and a half are lost in other methods.
Studies show that green power generation is far less efficient than carbon (up to one-fourth) and, therefore, costs more, regardless of "cap and trade." Solar power may be efficient in Arizona, but Pennsylvania doesn't have that many clear, sunny days. And, we are not one of the leaders in wind power compared to various Western states.
One of my clients is a major wind turbine manufacturer, so I am not opposed to wind power, but it is not a panacea.
WILLIAM YORK
Upper St. Clair
Route what?
As a resident of Robinson and a lifelong resident of the Pittsburgh area, I have grown, as most of us natives have, to know our roads, devoid of numbers and sometimes names.
I applaud our legislators to have made the decision to change the Parkway West from 279 to 376. Therein lies a current problem. It was announced recently that the Parkway West would be renamed 376 from the Fort Pitt Bridge to the I-79 interchange and that change is under way.
Trying to tell someone how to get to the airport will eventually become simpler when it is all 376 through to the intersection of 60 North and the Pennsylvania Turnpike. But right now, I would like to know what plan is being used to rename the highway and change the signage?
I weave in and out of roads to and from the Parkway West, and in some places new signs have been installed posting 376 East and West, then right ahead the overhead sign still says 279 (Green Tree). There is a new sign on 376 West near Carnegie that says 376 on the top, 22/30 in the middle and, lo and behold, the old 279 sign attached to the bottom (maybe as an afterthought, it was reconnected). In addition, there is not one place where drivers are being alerted to the change.
PennDOT needs to go back to the drawing board, make a plan and work the plan to systematically change the signage. I am sure some drivers who don't know the area are thoroughly confused.
Oh, and by the way, now it's one road with five (279, 376, 22, 30 and 60) different route numbers from Downtown to the airport.
MICHAEL J. TESTA
Robinson
Specter's Internet plan could backfire
Concerning the July 7 Perspectives piece by Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter "Attack the Cyberwalls!":
Given his reputation as a moderate, Sen. Specter probably realizes that every sword has two edges. He proposes spending $50 million to support development of tools that dissidents can use to avoid authoritarian government censorship.
Of course we are happy that Chinese and Iranian dissidents can hide from their government. But the software they use can also protect U.S. dissidents who think it is a good idea to attack the Holocaust Museum, kill abortion providers and engage in child pornography.
How will we feel about spending tax money to protect their anonymity?
KEN HANAWALT
Eighty Four
First Published July 14, 2009 12:00 am
