Featured Commentary category, Page 63
Susan Spicka: School property taxes fund cyber charter excess
More than $3.4 million spent on advertising over a three-month period. Over $75,000 spent on tickets, parking and concessions for Major League baseball games — including $50 per person for rooftop catering. Tens of thousands of dollars spent sponsoring minor league baseball and hockey teams. Over $100,000 spent on branded...
Chris Sandvig: To win federal infrastructure funding, Southwestern Pa. can’t afford to wait
The bipartisan infrastructure law is a once-in-a-generation investment, offering a remarkable — and time-sensitive — opportunity for Western Pennsylvania’s public transit systems. With billions of new dollars ready to be invested by the federal government, there is an urgent need to act swiftly to secure these funds before the window...
Sen. Gene Yaw: In Homer City, another step in killing the grid
April 3 was a significant day for Pennsylvanians who use electricity. The Homer City coal-fired power plant in Indiana County announced it would cease operations in 90 days. The news was a crippling blow to Pennsylvania’s status in the electric generation market. For almost six decades, the Homer City power...
Elwood Watson: NAACP should focus less on symbolism, more on action
Last month, the NAACP made waves for issuing a travel advisory for Florida in response to Gov. Ron DeSantis’ ruthless efforts to whitewash Black history and severely curtail diversity, equity and inclusion programs. “Once again, hate-inspired state leaders have chosen to put politics over people. Gov. Ron DeSantis and the...
Gary J. English: State police should enforce illegal sign laws
According to the article “Bill to boost funding for road and bridge projects advances in Pa. House” (May 22, TribLIVE), the House Transportation Committee proposes “(reducing) the annual appropriation taken out of the Motor License Fund to support the operations of the Pennsylvania State Police by $100 million until it...
Timothy J. Kunselman: We can handle the truth
“You can’t handle the truth” is the famous line from the movie “A Few Good Men.” In real life, we can’t handle the lies anymore. We must have the truth to move forward. It strikes me that many of our representatives and those who want to be representatives really do...
Karen I. Shragg: Environmentalist movement needs to get back to its roots
Americans celebrated the 53rd anniversary of Earth Day in April. The holiday has changed drastically over the past half century — and so has the natural environment that activists are seeking to protect. Today’s green activists tend to mark Earth Day by focusing on ways to minimize their personal impact...
Abbey Haslam: Cutting red tape on Pa.’s nurse practitioners
Expanding health care access has been a major political issue in recent decades — first, during the Clinton health care plan of the 1990s, and then through Obamacare and the subsequent rapid expansion of Medicaid. Yet, despite the major focus on expanding access to care, millions of Americans live in...
Sloane Davidson: Pittsburgh’s population decline can be improved by retaining, not just recruiting, newcomers
Pittsburgh’s population has been steadily declining since the collapse of the steel industry nearly 50 years ago. We now have one of the oldest populations in the entire United States, and deaths outpace births every year. Migration out of urban areas is seen throughout the country, but no metropolitan area...
Susan Crabtree: Christie’s high-risk spoiler run
Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie might be best known — at least on the presidential debate stage — for tearing down rivals rather than building up fellow Republicans. In a 2016 GOP primary debate, he famously roughed up Marco Rubio in a debate at Saint Anselm College in New...
John Tamny: There’s no such thing as ‘government stimulus’
Money has no purpose absent production first. Say it over and over again. Money is abundant in the United States not because the Fed decreed it so, but because productivity is a magnet for investment. If ever there comes a time when Americans cease their productive ways, the money will...
Noah Feldman: With Trump’s federal prosecution, timing is everything
Former President Donald Trump has been indicted on federal charges, catapulting the U.S. into new legal and constitutional territory. What this means for democracy and for the 2024 presidential race I’ll leave for others to explore. Legally, the two key issues for Trump’s future are, obviously, whether Trump is convicted...
Shannon Bow O’Brien: Pence vs. Trump race breaks new ground
Former Vice President Mike Pence launched his campaign bid for president on June 7, placing him in unusual ranks. While 18 of the 49 former vice presidents have gone on to run for president, it’s rare for vice presidents to run against their former bosses. Six of these former vice...
Ken Hersh: We must work to protect democracy
The United States is in the middle of a two-front war. We face dangerous external adversaries at a time when many inside our country doubt the benefits of our own leadership and the integrity of the very institutions that are designed to support our democracy here at home. 9/11 taught...
Colin McNickle: High costs, poor results — the troubling PPS story
Despite per student annual expenditures of nearly $30,000 that rank among the state’s highest, Pittsburgh Public Schools (PPS) continued to be a major disappointment when it came to academic achievement in 2022, concludes a new analysis by the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy. “Clearly, money is not the answer,” says...
Peter Morici: Americans may have to start working younger and retire older. That might be a good thing.
China announced earlier this year that for the first time since the 1960s, deaths outnumbered births and its population slipped in 2022 by 850,000 to 1.41 billion. Covid-19 brought this event forward a few years. More fundamentally, the legacy of China’s now-abandoned one-child policy and the high cost of raising...
Maurizio Vasania: Political compromises — like the debt-limit deal — have never been substitutes for lasting solutions
The compromise to avoid default on the U.S. debt passed muster, eventually. President Joe Biden and Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy pulled it off. The nation can breathe, at least for the next two years. And yet, the far right is unhappy, many Democrats from the progressive wing are...
Featured Commentary: Scandals have the potential to affect the legitimacy of judges — and possibly the federal judiciary, too
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is no stranger to controversy. In 1991, during his confirmation hearings in the Senate, Thomas faced accusations of sexual harassment from a former colleague and law school professor, Anita Hill. More recently, Thomas’ personal relationship with a real estate billionaire, Republican donor Harlan Crow,...
Stephen L. Carter: The Supreme Court’s confusing water ruling, explained
The Supreme Court’s recent decision on the limits of federal authority under the Clean Water Act has been celebrated or condemned, depending on the ideological predilections of the observer. Everyone agrees, however, that the opinions themselves make for rather rough reading. They boil down to a squabble over the words...
John Kleindienst: With volunteering, you get more than you give
Most of us have heard people say something along the lines of “I get more out of it than they do” when talking about the volunteer experience. Some will even couch that statement with “I know it sounds cliché, but …” as if others may not believe the genuine feeling...
Matthew Yglesias: The debt-limit crisis is over. Now on to the debt crisis
Maybe the most surprising aspect of the debt-ceiling increase President Joe Biden signed into law last week is that, once all the kicking and screaming was done, it not only passed Congress but passed easily. And maybe the most intriguing question raised by this whole debate is whether we should...
Christine Sarteschi: No sympathy for anti-government extremists
A movie titled “Sovereign,” starring Nick Offerman, Dennis Quaid and Jacob Tremblay, is in the planning stages. It is based on a real-world event involving two sovereign citizens, Jerry Kane and his 16-year-old son, Joseph. They shot and killed two West Memphis, Ark., police officers during a traffic stop. Sovereign...
Cal Thomas: Trump never changes
It wasn’t a difficult choice to watch the first of the NBA playoff games between Miami and Denver instead of Donald Trump’s appearance on “Hannity,” but when Denver built a 12-point lead, I switched channels to see if Trump might say something new? Nope, same old denouncing of opponents and...
Greg Fulton: When college football was still a sport …
Several years from now, we might wistfully be speaking about when college football was an amateur sport rather than a minor league for professional football. We might reminisce about when players chose to play for the love of the game and the pride of representing their school while obtaining a...
Bernie Hall: Investing in steel will secure Pa.’s future
Workers at U.S. Steel’s Mon Valley Works make steel for the smart homes, energy-efficient appliances and high-tech vehicles in ever-greater demand as America exits the pandemic and charts a new course for prosperity. Their counterparts at other mills across Pennsylvania build steel for the military and for the modern roads...
