Featured Commentary category, Page 95

Philip Ameris’ perspective on the types of elected officials, projects and policies we need in order to ensure we uplift Pennsylvanians (“Don’t expect labor’s endorsement after opposing blue-collar jobs,” Feb. 29, TribLIVE) only gets it partially right. As someone who came from a union household, I couldn’t agree more that...

It’s natural for decision-makers grappling with a new crisis to dust off ideas tried in the last one, whether they were good ideas or bad. Here’s a bad idea, unearthed by President Trump from a decade ago: Cutting the payroll tax to goose the economy. A payroll tax cut was...

A week or so ago, the candidacy of Joe Biden was at death’s door. Today, Biden’s candidacy is not only alive. He is first in votes, victories and delegates, and is favored to win the nomination and, by most polls, to defeat Donald Trump in November. “The World Turned Upside...

Now will someone listen? Early voting is stupid. Under California’s new election protocols, as many as 40% of California voters voted early, either by mail or at voting centers, for the March 3 primary. And what about those who cast ballots for Amy Klobuchar, Pete Buttigieg, Elizabeth Warren, Mike Bloomberg...

The socialist emperor of Vermont has no clothes. The feverish anti- establishment antipathy that’s helped fuel Bernie Sanders’ presidential ambitions over the past few years has relied on a belief that the system (what system? every system) has been rigged against him. From Wall Street to drug companies, from the Democratic...

Last month, the Trump administration considered rescinding CFM International’s export license to China. A General Electric joint venture, CFM has provided the Chinese airline industry with engines since the 1980s. This decades-old partnership is a lucrative one: In 2017, China Eastern Airline’s orders from CFM totaled $3.2 billion. The partnership...

A budget is really a list of priorities. In our own homes we spend the most money on necessities like housing, food and transportation, and we spend less on the special things that are still important to us, such as pets or vacations. It’s the same for the state budget:...

Here are a few headlines about an African tragedy: “Africa’s Worst Locust Plague in Decades Threatens Millions” (The Wall Street Journal), “‘Unprecedented’ Locust Invasion Approaches Full-Blown Crisis” (Scientific American), “Somalia Declares Locust Outbreak a ‘National Emergency’” (The National) and “UN Calls for International Action on East Africa Locust Outbreak” (Bloomberg...

A civilizing feature of any society is the right to say “no.” Indeed, societies can be usefully ranked from good to bad according to the respect that they accord to individuals’ right to say “no” to those who would take their property. The importance of being able to say “no”...

The most salient and lasting reason to not support Amazon is that it weakens your community. The virtue of commerce is that it brings you in contact with your fellow citizens. The rewarding nature of these exchanges cannot be felt by proxy. On the day Bari Weiss’ book “How to...

After Joe Biden’s blowout victory in South Carolina Saturday and the swift withdrawal of Tom Steyer, “Mayor Pete” Buttigieg and Sen. Amy Klobuchar, Super Tuesday is the decisive day of the race for the Democratic nomination. Fourteen states — including California and Texas and delegate-rich Colorado, North Carolina and Virginia...

Coronavirus — specifically the strain that causes covid-19 — has dominated our news cycles in recent days. We learn daily of increasing numbers of individuals who have been infected. At this writing, there are only two presumed positive cases in Pennsylvania, but we do need to be prepared for the...

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, the front-runner for the Democratic nomination for president, is praised by his admirers for being consistent. He’s been saying the same things for 40 years, they explain — as if this is an obvious compliment. I think that’s kind of weird. But I also like it...

Sometimes the simplest acts make the biggest impact. Take handwashing with soap. It’s proven by researchers to reduce the presence of harmful bacteria by 92%, according to researchers at the National Institute of Health. I run a Pittsburgh-based nonprofit charity called Eco-Soap Bank — and our sole mission is to...

Over 200 years ago, the great Scottish economist Adam Smith warned: “People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.” Although Smith wrote these words so long ago, he...

The Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board reports that total gambling revenues increased by 4.5% in 2019 over 2018. The gain did not reflect any increase in the number of people playing traditional slot machines but rather the expansion of gaming options, scholars at the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy note. However,...

Pennsylvania’s battleground status draws attention to endorsements ranging from the presidential to the local level. The Allegheny-Fayette Central Labor Council, of which the Western Pennsylvania Laborers’ District Council is an affiliate, recently announced its statewide endorsements. In House District 34, the council endorsed Chris Roland, the Democratic challenger to Democratic...

Washington has a way of capturing presidents more than they conquer its bureaucracy — in current parlance, President Trump has become an alligator more than he has drained the swamp. Whether it’s Sanders, Warren, Klobuchar, Buttigieg, Bloomberg or Biden, the country will get a choice between a defender of the...

Speaking at the United Nations in December, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi drew cheers by saying the United States was “still in” the Paris climate agreement. Green activists applauded Pelosi’s defense of the international climate accord, which President Trump has vowed to exit. They claim remaining in the Paris Agreement will...

Good for Mike Bloomberg. During his first debate, he slammed Bernie Sanders by saying: “We’re not going to throw out capitalism. We tried that. Other countries tried that. It was called communism, and it just didn’t work!” Exactly right. It’s safe to say Bloomberg is not a communist. I wonder...

Before former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg threw his hat into the 2020 presidential race, he defended the New York Police Department’s use of “stop, question and frisk” policing. At a U.S. Naval Academy’s 2019 Leadership Conference, Bloomberg said, “We focused on keeping kids from going through the correctional...

In “Jaws 2,” Roy Scheider reprises his role as police Chief Brody, the landlubber lawman forced to battle a great white shark. He’s convinced there’s another beast out there, but he can’t persuade anyone who matters. “Look at this. That’s a shark,” says Brody, waving a grainy underwater photo at...

“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” Eighty-seven years ago, those were the words of Franklin Delano Roosevelt in his 1933 inaugural speech. Today, they resonate with Sen. Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign, which confronts a barrage of attacks aimed at frightening away voters. Fear is the enemy...

Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who did not have a great performance in Wednesday’s Democratic debate, nevertheless said something interesting. “We’re not going to throw out capitalism,” Bloomberg said. “We tried. Other countries tried that. It was called communism, and it just didn’t work.” I’m unclear on when...

Elections, particularly for such high-profile offices as president, governor, and United States senator and congressman, are usually an interesting combination of highly contested and yet innocuous affairs. Candidates try to sharply draw differences between themselves and try to “activate” their respective bases, motivating them for the necessary turnout. Yet when...