Sounding off: Listen to experts, get vaccinated

Taking covid vaccines, with their rare risks, is much safer than the frequent risks of actually getting covid, according to the Centers for Disease Control, this nation’s best source of information about contagious diseases. Yet we often hear people say, “My fear of the vaccines is much greater than my fear of covid.” This seems to come from those who have only been listening to their buddies, uninformed relatives and politicians.

Instead, listen to medical sources. The CDC reports that 95% of doctors are willing to take the vaccines.

Covid is random in those it strikes. Certain groups, such as seniors and those with pre-existing conditions, are more vulnerable to covid, but it also kills and does long-term damage to younger people with no other medical complications.

Listen carefully to those who are anti-vaccine, then answer with facts, not emotions. Get those vaccinations! Knowing the medical facts about covid is far safer for freedom, liberty and easing of economic distress than saying that political issues outweigh scientific reality.

Marguerite Babcock, Cook

Why minimum wage must be increased

George Will’s March 4 column “The mildly encouraging minimum-wage debate” deals with the danger of raising the wage of workers. Will argues that raising wages kills jobs and slows economic growth. I believe there is ample evidence to suggest the exact opposite.

A 1994 Princeton study compared the results of New Jersey raising the minimum wage while Pennsylvania did not. The study found an increase in employment in New Jersey, but not in Pennsylvania.

Twenty-plus years of research confirms the Princeton findings. An increase in wages for those making minimum wage results in an increase in spending which, in a consumption-driven economy, stimulates economic growth.

According to the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, every $1 per hour in wage increase for a minimum-wage worker results in a $3,500 yearly increase in their spending. Through the decades, we have learned that trickle down and austerity during an economic downturn does not improve the situation, but stimulating growth does. We also know if minimum wage had kept pace with gains in productivity — as it did from 1938 to 1968 — minimum wage would be $24 an hour.

Minimum wage needs to be increased now.

Michael Garing, North Huntingdon

Won’t vote Republican again

Why I will never vote Republican again:

1. I believe Republicans have contributed more to gun violence in this country than anything anyone has done in our history by allowing and encouraging millions of guns to drown our society.

2. Republicans seem to sit back and ignore the daily mass shootings in this country and hope that we will accept them as part of everyday life; already 147 mass shootings in 2021.

3. Republicans brought us Donald Trump, in my opinion the most dangerous president in recent memory.

4. Republicans brought us lies as a way of life.

5. Based on Republican lies, they now bring us more voter suppression laws.

6. Who can accept a party that makes it harder to vote while making it easier to get guns? Votes don’t kill people.

7. In my opinion, Republicans have endorsed racism and hate not seen since Nazi Germany used hate to justify the slaughter of millions of people.

In my lifetime, I never thought I would see such hatred solely based on a person’s beliefs or because someone is a different color or practices a different religion.

Robert Grottenthaler, Erie

The writer is a former Springdale resident.

Expanding, not restricting, our freedoms

These days it seems like everyone complains that their freedoms are being infringed upon. Wearing masks is a small sacrifice during a pandemic, and actually gives us more freedom — freedom to be healthy.

Letter-writer Steven Crichley (“Totalitarianism frightening — and coming,” April 16) worries about vaccination passports. They would in fact expand his freedom — freedom to go into bars or stadiums without getting sick. He worries about a driving tax. Freedom to drive on safe roads and bridges. Elimination of fossil fuels? Freedom to breathe. Gun control? Freedom to stay alive.

Democrats are not trying to take our freedoms. In fact it is the Republicans who are infringing our right to vote, the centerpiece of our democracy. They know that their domestic policies are very unpopular, and they can’t win a fair election, as shown in seven of the last eight elections, in which they lost the popular vote.

Democrats only want common-sense measures on guns like background checks, which don’t infringe on Second Amendment freedoms. I haven’t heard any call for the confiscation of guns, except military-style weapons which have no place in civilized society. I wonder if people who are ensconced in Fox and other fake news venues were told that there were at least 45 mass shootings between March 16 and April 16? More than one a day.

As letter-writer Don Grasser pointed out (“Our rights are for everyone,” April 10), gun sales were higher in 2020 than any previous year. And so were mass shootings (611). Coincidence? How can any thinking person think that it would be any other way?

Al Duerig, Salem

Vote ‘no’ on Pa. amendments

In the movie “Horse Feathers,” Groucho Marx sings, “I don’t know what they have to say / It makes no difference anyway / Whatever it is, I’m against it / No matter what it is or who commenced it / I’m against it.”

The GOP’s proposed amendments to the Pennsylvania Constitution are proof they have adopted in full this (Groucho) Marxist folly as their approach to handling the pandemic. The amendments they offer the voters supposedly “limit” the governor’s constitutional powers to handle emergencies and disasters.

In fact, they negate any attempt by any governor to keep Pennsylvania safe from a future long-term statewide emergency. The two amendments transfer the power to handle ongoing emergencies to the 253-person Legislature, regardless of whether it is something that happens occasionally, such as a flood, or once in a generation, such as a global pandemic. As the past 13 months have shown, some emergencies can be virtually unlimited in time and scope, impacting the entire state.

The folly of these amendments can be seen in Michigan. The Michigan Supreme Court held that the governor could not extend the covid-related emergency declarations, per the state constitution. That ruling negated any ability to have a coherent response to covid, contributing to the frequent displays of public inability/refusal to follow safety and commonsense rules, which helped spur Michigan’s spike.

These amendments are in line with the GOP’s ongoing attacks on this governor’s attempt to deal with the pandemic. Now they want to cement that “Horse Feathers” logic in the Pennsylvania Constitution.

Eric Falk, North Huntingdon

The writer is a member of the Westmoreland County Democratic Committee and chair of the Norwin Area Democrats.

Don’t follow Republican advice on these ballot questions

Many conservatives feel betrayed by their Republican state representatives for actively championing Act 77 in 2019, prior to covid-19, for legalized no-excuse mail-in ballots, which I believe is a Democratic initiative similar to defunding the police. Our May 18 primary will have four ballot questions. Again, our Republican Legislature wants us to vote “yes” on all four, yet I advise no to questions 3 and 4:

1. Vote “yes” to allowing a majority vote to extend or terminate emergency powers.

2. Vote “yes” to limiting the Pennsylvania governor’s emergency powers to 21 days.

3. Vote “no” to amending the Pennsylvania Constitution regarding race and ethnicity. This is redundant to the 14th Amendment for equal treatment and could be used, like Act 77, in ways not spelled out, such as employing and housing illegals. They should have added the word “citizen.” If our Pennsylvania judiciary can subvert the law once, they can do it again with this back-door sanctuary amendment.

4. Vote “no” to allowing fire departments and EMS companies with paid personnel to apply for state loans. This could lead to more paid fire departments.

Unfortunately, our Republican representatives have their own agenda and are not representing the best interests of Trump conservatives and can’t be trusted. They clearly lack the fortitude to fight like progressives. When in doubt, vote “no.”

John Ventre, Hempfield

Biden will destroy our country

Letter-writer Ed Svitek ("We’re better off with Biden”) states, “I gladly will accept whatever we get from President Biden. … I know he never will attack or intentionally harm the good people of this country.”

Well, let’s look at the Biden administration’s accomplishments in the last four months:

• fracking jobs are lost

• Keystone XL pipeline is gone

• staggering stimulus package that sends billions overseas

• border crisis out of control, including the spread of diseases and crime

• more funds for abortion

• double standard of sexual misconduct and ethics

The list goes on. I don’t know how anyone else sees it, but the loss of life, jobs and income and threats to our national security are definitely an intentional harm to the taxpayers of this country. The impression of an open checkbook for the world and weak military policies have made our country a laughingstock on the world stage. What is really scary is he has over 3½ more years to destroy our country.

Jack Juris, Buffalo Township