Sounding off: Biden and Trump, high-paid coaches, global warming on readers' minds

Let’s dump both Biden, Trump

An overwhelming majority of Americans say they want neither President Biden nor former President Trump on the 2024 ballot. Yet both are considered prohibitive favorites to win their party’s nomination.

This is because extremists on both sides have co-opted the two major political parties by being consistently reliable primary voters. The result is a divided nation mired in a bitter cultural war as America falls further behind our economic and geo-political rivals.

It’s understandable that independents and moderates feel unwelcomed by either party. But, given the current system, the only way to break the radical extremists’ stronghold is from within.

How do we do this?

Register for the party that most closely aligns with your political philosophy. Then vote in the primary for someone other than Biden or Trump. Meanwhile, use social media to encourage others to register and vote, particularly those in early primary states, so neither Biden nor Trump has the nomination wrapped up by Super Tuesday.

If we deny both Biden and Trump the delegates that they need to win the nomination outright, we could force them to face brokered national party conventions from which more acceptable candidates could emerge.

Brokered conventions might give us all a more palatable choice in November 2024. In any event, we should do all we can to avoid a Biden-Trump rematch.

Peter Busowski

Jeannette

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Football and academics

When I saw your recently published salaries of the head coaches of football at Pitt and Penn State, I became curious to see how they compared to the salaries of the individuals responsible for the academic success of these institutions and how some other well known academic institutions valued their professional employees. Here is what I found:

• University of Pittsburgh: head football coach, $5,391,518; athletic director, $756,000; chancellor, $950,000; average faculty member, $99,877 (Penn State’s numbers are comparable except that their football coach is paid even more — guaranteed $7 million.

• Carnegie Mellon University: head football coach, $76,738; president, $1,380,000; average faculty member, $118,048

• Harvard University: head football coach, $46,510 (estimated); president, $1,130,000; average faculty member, $193,382

• MIT: head football coach, $73,412 (estimated); president, $2,545,000; average faculty member, $185,885

It is hard to swallow the fact that coaches and even athletic directors are paid far better than presidents and teachers of actual academic subjects at our major public universities. Note that the prestigious private universities above value teaching staff more highly than coaches. Are public universities maintained to educate our young people or are they there to function as minor league sports franchises?

Charles Henry

Greensburg

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The right to criticize police

To those who insist on criticizing the police at every turn (“Citizen overwatch of police needed,” Aug. 27, TribLIVE), I issue a challenge. Instead of playing armchair quarterback to situations you have no first-hand knowledge of, put your money, or in this case, your judgment, where your mouth is. Go through the police academy, strap on the pounds of gear and put your life on the line every shift. Only then do you earn the right to criticize the handling of a police situation.

Are there incidences that sometimes require scrutiny? Of course! We need look no further than the FBI for proof of this. However, the constant disparaging of the police is uncalled for.

If the actions of the police are so questionable, I certainly would expect citizens not to call them in the event of an emergency. Will this happen? Doubtful!

Trudy Olsen

East Huntingdon

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Global warming hard to deny

Global warming, primarily caused by burning fossil fuels, is becoming more difficult to deny. Record-breaking temperatures, increased wildfires and coastal regions hard hit by hurricanes are becoming the norm. The insurance companies are pulling out of states like California and Florida due to the high cost of covering the destruction and the diminishing profits now lending to losses caused by climate and weather. If the insurance companies do not make sufficient profit, they get to walk away from the market. So much for the free market solving our economic situations. The for-profit insurance companies get to ignore the problem and leave it up to government (our tax dollars) to clean up the mess. And what a mess it is. The National Flood Insurance Program insures approximately 5 million policies and paid out in 2022 alone $3.9 billion.

In the early 1900s there were less than 25 worldwide natural disasters yearly. Now the yearly count is more than 400. Climate-fueled disasters cost the U.S. $165 billion in just 2022. Between 1980 and 2022 the U.S. has sustained 341 weather and climate disasters with a cumulative cost of over $2.475 trillion. Texas leads in the U.S. with $380 billion spent on weather events, Florida is second with $370 billion and Louisiana is third with $290 billion spent.

So, snowbirds, forget about heading south anywhere from California to Florida. If you insist on going, you might consider living in a trailer. That way when extreme weather hits, you can move your home to a safer location to avoid losing everything.

Patricia Oliver

North Huntingdon

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Andrew Mellon not quite a hero

In “Andrew Mellon, hero of the 1920s” (Aug. 9, TribLIVE), Lawrence Reed presents Mellon as the “best” secretary of the Treasury in history. Reed’s account is startling for its omissions; the stock market crash of 1929 was directly attributable to Mellon’s policies. Income inequality under Mellon was the greatest in American history, only matched by today’s.

Mellon put an enormous amount of money in the hands of the wealthy but it increasingly did not go into “productive enterprise.” The agricultural sector was left out of this “vast wealth”; a depression started in 1921 among farmers and persisted into the 1930s.

Wall Street was hard put to find a use for the money flood. So a stock market boom was started to absorb it. Radios sold at an astonishing rate, but not nearly enough to justify RCA’s stratospheric $505 share price in September 1929. Wall Street invented “holding companies” that did nothing but own shares of other companies. And then it invented holding companies of holding companies! So much cash flew to New York to finance purchases of stocks on margin that cash shortages appeared around the country. For my family, Mellon was disaster.

This is not ancient history. The crash of 2008 was fed by the same old income inequality fed by the same old tax cuts as in Mellon’s day. So Wall Street again invented new devices — “collateralized debt obligations” and “credit default swaps” — to soak up the money. And millions lost their homes in the ensuing disaster.

Robert Supansic

McKeesport

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American Rescue Plan helping Western Pa.

The article “Westmoreland home repair program filled before program launch” (Sept. 9, TribLIVE) omits an important fact about the “overprescribed” and popular Westmoreland County effort to repair low-income homes funded through a state allocation of American Rescue Plan funds.

The American Rescue Plan funding the popular program was passed by Congress and enacted into law in March 2021 without a single Republican vote in either the House or the Senate.

The Tribune-Review does a disservice to its readers when this fact is omitted from stories about the many programs and projects the American Rescue Plan is funding in Western Pennsylvania.

P. Michael Lobalzo

Renton, Wash.

The writer is a former Bakerstown resident.

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Defund Planned Parenthood

Buried deep (section A, page 7) in the Labor Day weekend edition was a three-paragraph blip with the headline “Pa. to end state funding for anti-abortion counseling centers” (Sept. 1, TribLIVE). Apparently, the governor has the power and the desire to defund the pro-life agencies despite the fact that half of his constituents are pro-life and anti-abortion.

I understand that a $2 million increase is in the new budget for Real Alternatives. Much like the money allotted for student scholarships, the governor will veto it. Then that money will be up for grabs. Will it end up going to Planned unParenthood? Why is he permitted to do this without going through the Pennsylvania House and Senate?

May I boldly suggest that Pennsylvania also defund Planned unParenthood to make all things “equitable”? I do not want my tax dollars going to Planned unParenthood used to pay for abortions. I don’t think I stand alone on this. People, wake up! Contact the governor. Be very careful who and what (party platform) you are voting for.

Pam Hohal

Hempfield