Opinion category, Page 14
Editorial: Adding up the state’s structural deficit versus rainy day fund math
Debt and savings are different columns in the same ledger. Any business can tell you that. So can anyone working on their taxes right now. Like blood circulating in the body, the amount of money in and out of any operation is always in flux. Pennsylvania’s numbers show just how...
Letter to the editor: Support for drug overdose survivors
The Westmoreland County LOSS (Local Outreach to Suicide Survivors) Team has added a DOSS (Drug Overdose Survivor Support) Team. The LOSS Team began responding to suicides in June 2023. Hundreds of families have been impacted by our efforts. We are hoping to expand our reach with the DOSS Team. LOSS/DOSS...
Mark Gongloff: Extreme cold is a billion-dollar problem, too
If you’re a climate-change denier in the eastern U.S., including the president, then the past few weeks have been a dream. It’s cold and snowy where I live, you might say, colder and snowier than in years. Therefore, climate change is a hoax, just as I’m always saying. Would I...
Jason Lias: 5 Democrats, 2 Republicans — is Pa. Gaming Control Board playing loose with the rules?
Pennsylvania’s Gaming Control Board is supposed to watch over the state’s $14 billion gambling industry. Think of it like the casino eye in the sky — constantly watching, making sure everyone plays fair and catching cheats before they slip by. But right now, the board itself looks like it’s bending...
Sheldon Jacobson: Lessons learned from the Olympics — we must be on the same team
The 232 athletes on the U.S. Winter Olympics team are supported by the entire nation. Watching family, friends and supporters waving American flags and applauding world-class performances makes all of us feel united. Yet watching how Congress is dealing with the final appropriation bill for the Department of Homeland Security...
Letter to the editor: Don’t expect McCormick to protect Pa.
Over the past year, I have written many times to Sen. Dave McCormick about my concerns about democracy in the United States and seeing fascism arrive here. My letters to him included encouraging him to stand up for democracy and condemn political violence. He repeatedly sends me a rote letter...
Editorial: Pennsylvania is more than a political stand-in
Pennsylvania is often described as a microcosm of the nation, its blue population centers offset by wide stretches of red and its elections swinging from cycle to cycle. But that political shorthand can obscure something important: what looks tidy on a map becomes far more complicated when policy reaches real...
Peter Morici: Economy threatens House Republicans in midterms, but Trump’s legacy secure
The Trump economy is delivering growth and investment in artificial intelligence, the stock market is booming and real wages are rising, yet many voters are unhappy. If the Democrats flip the House, then President Trump will be constrained. Still, his overall economic legacy won’t be easily displaced. Democrats could subject...
Letter to the editor: Defendant transport responsibility belongs to police
Due to the increases in the lawful duties of the Sheriff’s Office, we are unable to continue the transport of defendants from the county jail to district judges for preliminary hearings. The responsibility for transporting defendants to district judges is with the arresting agency. The officer who signed the criminal...
David Macpherson: Moral injury and patriotism
I attended high school in the early ’70s, just as the Vietnam War was ending and Richard Nixon was cheating. I wanted to think of myself as a protester, but most war protesting was over by the time I could drive. Furthermore, displaying patriotism was not what cool kids did...
Letter to the editor: Enforcing our immigration laws
America has been enforcing immigration laws since 1876. Every president before President Trump (except for Joe Biden) enforced our laws. President Obama put detainees in temporary cages; President Clinton used heavily armed agents to forcefully remove a 6-year-old kid in Florida and deport him to Cuba. There can be only...
Letter to the editor: Nonprofits need to pay up
PNC and UPMC have given the city of Pittsburgh large donations to purchase city vehicles. Let’s give them a hand. But I have a better idea that would double or triple the size of their donations. Make all nonprofits, large and small, in the city of Pittsburgh pay taxes instead....
Letter to the editor: Gainey on gaming board?
Regarding the article “Ed Gainey gets new job on Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board” (Feb. 6, TribLive): Couldn’t help but chuckle, and cry, about this announcement. So a mayor who for years came up with numbers for the city budget that had no basis in reality, according to the comptroller, is...
Letter to the editor: Firefighters should have a say on new station
I am concerned about the way recent disagreements between Hempfield Township supervisors and the volunteers who run the Adamsburg station of the Hempfield Volunteer Fire Department were handled by the supervisors. Initially, the supervisors had planned to spend over $1 million in new taxpayer funds on a new station without...
Editorial: Good neighbors, hard moments
There may be few places where being a good neighbor carries the weight it does in Southwestern Pennsylvania. “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” was not just a television show here. Fred Rogers was an actual neighbor. That instinct often shows itself when something goes wrong close to home. People show up at...
Letter to the editor: No one is above the law
At a Jan. 22 congressional hearing, Jack Smith testified, “Our investigation developed proof beyond a reasonable doubt that President Trump engaged in a criminal scheme to overturn the results of the 2020 election and to prevent the lawful transfer of power.” The Republican congressmen on the Judicial Committee chose not...
Letter to the editor: Trump doesn’t act like a president
Donald Trump’s supporters pretend puzzlement over the anger directed at him. They forget that, before Trump declared his candidacy in 2015, politicians did not ordinarily engage in bald-faced lies, cruel slanders, snarky contempt or foul language. Personally, I will refer to him as “President” when he starts acting like one....
Kaitlyn Buss: Jeffrey Epstein case forges a rare, cynical American consensus
Jeffrey Epstein has become one of the few scandals that unites Americans in cynicism. The case is about far more than sex crimes. It has crystallized a suspicion many Americans across party lines already carried — there is one set of rules for the powerful and another for everyone else....
Colin McNickle: PRT, other transit agencies, missed chance to rein in costs
The covid-19 pandemic caused a major decline in public transportation usage in 2020 as huge numbers of commuters worked from home instead of traveling to a workplace. That work-from-home culture has persisted and continues to be realized in languishing passenger counts, not only for Pittsburgh Regional Transit (PRT) but for...
Letter to the editor: Stopping ICE terror
It’s incredible to see the outpouring of support for Oakmont resident José Flores (“Fundraiser for family of Oakmont man detained by ICE raises more than $75K,” Feb. 2, TribLive). He fled Nicaragua and with an active asylum case, work permit and no criminal record, he worked at Oakmont Bakery. Nevertheless,...
Editorial: Warsh looks like a smart choice for the Fed … for now
The nomination of Kevin Warsh as next chair of the Federal Reserve is good news. He’s amply qualified for the role, having served as a Fed governor from 2006 to 2011. He has argued throughout for the central bank to narrow its focus to controlling inflation and to rely less...
Letter to the editor: Protect Pa.’s endangered species
I hear the call of chicka-dee-dee from the Carolina chickadee and the chirp of northern cardinals outside my window. These birds have opened my eyes to the nature and diversity around me, but they have no idea what may be in store for their endangered counterparts. Congress has proposed bills...
Editorial cartoons for the week of Feb. 9
.Editorial cartoons for the week of Feb. 9...
Mallard Fillmore cartoons for the week of Feb. 9
Mallard Fillmore cartoons for the week of Feb. 9....
Bee Vang: What Clint Eastwood’s ‘Gran Torino’ got right — and what America refused to learn
There was a deep chill in the air the day President Donald Trump said he’d consider invoking the Insurrection Act after a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent fatally shot Renee Good in south Minneapolis. Something came to mind: Inhumanity follows atrocities as the “jackal follows the wounded beast.” That...
