Sounding off: Pay raises, slavery, freedoms, tax hikes among week's topics

Pa. Legislature’s blank check

There is a popular commercial dealing with the timeshare industry. Basics are this: You don’t know how much and for how long you are going to pay for a real estate mistake. You signed a blank check for life.

Several times this paper has granted me my railings against the Pennsylvania Legislature’s pay grab of 2005 at midnight. This continues today with the recent self-granted pay raise. To add insult to injury, the 2005 midnight grab included a cost-of-living adjustment based on the Philadelphia SMSA. So, for decades, quietly they have gotten pay raises without a single vote, along with special perks. Have you and your family done financially as well?

So for one day every two years, actually for 12 hours, you get an opportunity to change things with your vote.

A Pennsylvania constitutional uprising needs to take place. Why? Because the Legislature has its self-political interest in mind. Change won’t take place, and we will keep paying for poor service and see the greed like the timeshare industry commercials tell us about.

They supposedly work for us. They volunteered to run for office. What great service are they providing us that is costing us freedom and no say? They have stacked the deck in their favor.

Ray Borkoski

Ford City

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Civil War was indeed fought over slavery

Regarding the perplexing and conspiracy-laden letter “A Civil War history lesson” (Jan. 9, TribLive): To quote the author: “The mainstream media’s attacks on Nikki Haley not recognizing slavery as the reason for the War Between the States is way off base.” No. The Civil War was fought over slavery. The primary reason for the Civil War, instigated by the South, was to maintain the dying institution of slavery. The South deemed the African races inferior and good only as slaves.

This was spelled out clearly and succinctly in the famous “Cornerstone Speech” given by Confederate Vice President Alexander H. Stephens on March 21, 1861: “They (The United States Founding Fathers) rested upon the assumption of the equality of races. This was an error. It was a sandy foundation, and the government built upon it fell when the ‘storm came and the wind blew.’ Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner-stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth.”

Perhaps the writer, rather than speculate about history, should look at the actual facts and the actual words of history’s instigators.

Richard Graham

Sheraden

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Watching our freedoms erode

First, I am not a Trump supporter. I am a retired serviceman who has fought for our freedom. A freedom that I have been seeing erode every day. I watched with everyone as they tore down our statures and rewrote our history. I watched as the playing of our national anthem was downplayed. I have seen several of our so-called “rights” taken away. I see daily how our own citizens are forced to live in shame while migrants are given high class hotel rooms to trash. I know people who have been trying for years to enter the country legally but are still waiting even though they have a verified source of income.

Our rights of freedom and democracy are being challenged. First, the Colorado Supreme Court removed a candidate from the primary ballot. Whatever happen to being innocent until proven guilty? Now, one person in Maine decides that she alone had the power to take away our right to vote for the candidate of our choice.

I hear the term “MAGA” tossed around like a four-letter word. Look at our great nation today. Our military overseas attacked over 100 times without a major response. Yes, we need to MAGA! Regardless if you are a Democrat or a Republican, we need to turn our country around and Make America Great Again.

Michael Jasik

Greensburg

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County tax increase

I want to thank our Westmoreland County commissioners for the lovely Christmas gift of a 32.5% tax increase. Your thoughtfulness this time of year is truly appreciated by your constituents and especially those of us on a fixed income. I suggest that had you implemented this increase before the election, you’d likely be looking for another cushy job in 2024.

Richard Herd

Hempfield

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Hits and misses

In today’s era of fake news and biased political media, I find The Wall Street Journal to be one of the few intelligent, balanced major media outlets. Recently its top economic and political reporters listed their biggest “hits” and “misses” in 2023 as follows:

• Hit — Developments in biomedical and artificial intelligence industries.

• Miss — Overemphasis on climate control subsidies on electrical vehicles and green energy.

• Hit — Supreme Court decisions supporting free speech and balance of government power.

• Miss — Republican freedom caucus hamstringing House functioning.

• Hit — School choice now available to parents in 12 states.

• Miss — Bidenomics and record government spending and debt.

To this list, I would add the following misses: the disaster at our southern border, the increase in crime on our city streets, the politicization of the Department of Justice and the IRS by the party in power and the corruption of the mainstream media.

The big question is, will we suffer another four years of Misses, and misguided policies, or will a new round of leaders return us to fiscal, monetary and political sanity, let alone a safer, more peaceful world?

Ron Raymond

Buffalo Township

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U.S. Steel and what ails corporate America

Now that U.S. Steel is in the news with its impending sale, let’s take a look at the reasons why it is a poster child for what ails American corporations.

First is the corrupting influence of lobbies. Because of the steel industry’s decades-long lobbying, the companies have received billions of dollars, our tax dollars, in state, local and federal subsidies and bailouts. This lobbying reached its zenith during the Trump years with the imposed duties on imports. The American people end up paying a price for these subsidies.

Factor in their exemptions from environmental regulations. Mon Valley residents continue to this day to pay the price of the industry’s pollution.

Then there is the staggering wage inequality. U.S. Steel’s CEO compensation is almost $19 million. That is 345 times the pay of the average Pennsylvania steel mill worker’s $55,000. This obscene wage inequality is incompatible with democracy. This is what causes revolutions and autocracies.

Finally, there are the destructive results of stock buybacks. Instead of using cash to lower prices for the consumer, invest in the company, clean up their pollution or increase wages, U.S. Steel spent $1.2 billion in the last two years on stock buybacks which benefit Wall Street, shareholders and upper management.

We the middle class need better regulations to protect us from the excessive greed of our captains of industry.

Joanne Garing

North Huntingdon

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It takes work to see understand climate crisis

The letter “Only Trump can save us” (Dec. 26, TribLive) purports to explain the climate crisis as a globalist conspiracy to nationalize the economy and make us change our collective lifestyle. This plot is said to be orchestrated by the suppliers of windmills and related technologies.

The author notes that he has not seen scientific evidence that a rise in temperatures can be anthropogenic in origin — has he looked for evidence? Or does he figure that in fact there is no point in looking, because he already knows that man has no power to destroy God’s creative work?

And even if greenhouse gases could destroy the world, they are all the fault of China and India. Thus does the author come to conclude that Donald Trump is the true antidote to … well, something.

How to make one’s way through this tissue of bizarre beliefs? Trying to understand a little basic science has a wonderful way of clearing the mind, as do testing one’s logic and doing some fact-checking. It takes a little work, and it’s often necessary to change one’s mind. But the premise that there is a global cabal at work is not a good starting point toward forming an opinion on a subject of such importance.

Joanne Murray

Jeannette