Sounding off: How about a moratorium on income tax?

Left-wing politicians advocate using the pandemic to shape the country with liberal ideology. What would happen if right-wing politicians used the pandemic to shape the country with conservative ideology?

Imagine if in addition to spending $2 trillion on a coronavirus emergency response bill, we also placed a one-year moratorium on collecting all income tax revenue (also about $2 trillion in value). Thus, the taxpayers could keep more of their hard-earned income for at least one year while the country recovers from the cost of the pandemic.

Why bother collecting tax revenue anyway, since the government is already spending money it doesn’t have? Instead, we could be generating revenue in the way the country was originally founded (until 1913) by raising tariffs on imported goods — especially from China.

Joel Last, Greensburg

Ask governor to let students have graduation

I am asking all superintendents and school boards to reach out to the governor and ask him not to cancel all 2020 graduation ceremonies. Hasn’t enough been taken away from our students and school staffs?

The class of 2020 are the next teachers, medical professionals, chemists, engineers, etc. who will be fighting the next viruses. They deserve to hear their names, walk across the stage, throw their caps, and celebrate with friends and families. Please give them this moment!

I truly believe the call on April 9 to cancel school for the rest of the school year was way too early. Don’t let graduations have the same fate. Delay them if you must, but do not cancel!

Dani Lingis, New Stanton

Thank health care workers

I am an attending physician at Loyalhanna Care Center, Latrobe, which was recently in the news due to covid-19. Despite the strong efforts of the administration, the virus was likely introduced into the facility by a patient transferred from a hospital outside our locale. Over the past month it has quickly spread to numerous patients on the north wing. Many have recovered, some are still ill, and several have died. Fifteen staff members also have contracted the virus. So far, mitigation has spared the south wing.

I am privileged to work with a superb nursing and ancillary staff led by a strong administrator and director of nursing. Coronavirus has been called “the invisible enemy.” Indeed, you can’t see it, hear it, taste it or smell it, but you can feel it every time you enter the unit. Every day brave nurses, aides, therapists and housekeepers enter the unit to provide excellent care and compassion to their ill residents, despite the risk to their own health and lives and those of their families.

I ask you whenever you see nurses and other health care workers, especially ones working the front lines, to thank them and pray for them.

Dr. George M. Gavin, Unity

Trump administration’s actions commendable

I would like letter-writer Bob Grottenthaler (“Trump’s covid-19 response incompetent”) to point out why he thinks the Trump administration ignored the CDC pandemic plan from 2005. I went on the CDC website and read the plan. I understand President Trump’s committee may not have followed it to the letter, but most of the response did use some of the guidelines. How would Grottenthaler know it was not used?

I would also like to remind him that the World Health Organization, which had known about the virus since Jan. 7, did not declare it “a public health emergency of international concern” until Jan. 30. Trump restricted travel from China Jan. 31.

While I acknowledge the seriousness of the virus took the whole world by surprise, the Trump administration has done a great job managing it. After we get this under control I’m sure the plan will be updated. This is not a political issue; this is a life-threatening issue, so save the criticism.

Dorothy Shock, Springdale

Too many non-experts

If it is relevant to preface your words with the phrase “I’m not a (insert profession here) but,” then please stop right there. Any statement after that only serves to prove your preface to be 100% accurate.

Gary Russak, North Huntingdon

Healthy citizens, healthy economy

Regarding Dave Majernik’s letter “Hysteria shouldn’t kill our economy”: I realize you are a Republican operative, but don’t you understand that you can’t have a healthy economy without a healthy citizenry?

You say it is “not uncaring to put coronavirus in perspective and consider the millions of lives lost annually to other diseases and drug abuse” and ask why this is different.

Well, it is different because diseases like cancer, heart disease, hemophilia, diabetes, lupus, Crohn’s and Lyme disease (just to name a few) cannot be contracted simply by being in the same room with a person who has one of those conditions. But coronavirus can.

I understand the need to open the economy and put people back to work. I just don’t trust President Trump to do it as safely as possible.

Richard Dulemba, Washington Township, Westmoreland County

Joe Biden knows how to be president

In a pandemic, facts and competency are important.

If elected president, Joe Biden will instruct government agencies to award government contracts for life-saving equipment to the most reputable businesses with a history of reliability, not to his campaign donors and friends. Biden will ensure that front-line workers have all the PPE they say they need to keep them safe. He will not suggest that nurses are stealing it.

Biden will listen to workers and business people and state and city leaders to see what they need to support their communities during a pandemic. Biden will allow doctors to speak against unproven theories, and he will never suggest that we take unproven drugs that may kill us.

Most of all, Biden will tell us the facts. He will listen to scientists and other medical researchers and experts to guide us through a crisis. Biden knows that being president of the United States means he is president of all of us, not just those who voted for him. He will care about us and never put his own interests ahead of the American people.

Biden understands the responsibilities of the presidency.

Renalda Arndt, South Huntingdon