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Late lawmakers deserve to feel pain, lose perks
It has been more than eight weeks since the state budget was supposed to be passed. It is the job of the elected Legislature to do this.
What would happen to most workers if they were eight weeks late on a job assignment?
The time has come for all legislators to feel the same pain that they are inflicting on many constituents by their petty, childish games.
What should have happened the very first day the budget was not passed? All of their pay should have been stopped. All of their credit/debit cards turned in. All of their state-financed cars parked. All of their perks ended. All of their insurance cancelled.
They are good at blaming each other or the governor for the mess. They are good at telling people to “hang in there.” Then they have the nerve to take a 10-day break! It isn’t their credit being hurt or house on the verge of foreclosure or bills piling up.
Maybe it is time for it to be their problem.
Let’s see if even one of our local elected officials will have the guts to take up this challenge: Go to Harrisburg and take a vote on stopping all of the legislative pay and perks until the budget is passed.
You can bet they will all laugh at this and think: “How dare someone tell me how to do my job. I can’t work for free. How would I live?”
That is life in the real Pennsylvania, guys. Maybe you should visit it sometime.
Laws, not health care, are what’s wrong in U.S.
There is nothing wrong with America’s health care. What’s wrong is allowing our elected officials to enact laws regulating insurance companies – laws so convoluted that President Obama remembers his mother struggling with insurance paper work.
There is nothing wrong with America’s health care. What’s wrong is allowing our elected officials to enact laws so full of favors to a choice elite that insurance companies amass obscene profits and then these same elected officials cackle about “closing the loopholes.” Repeal the stupid law.
There is nothing wrong with America’s health care. What’s wrong is allowing our elected officials to enact laws that so penalize American manufacturers that it is often less expensive to import medications from foreign countries even after adding the costs of shipping.
President Obama, I want you to veto any type of national health care. I want you to introduce legislation repealing the laws that make these obscene profits possible.
Right-to-die headline said to be misleading
The Times Leader’s Aug. 30 edition carried an article about the death of Robert Schindler, father of Terri Schiavo.
Mr. Schindler passed away on the funeral day of the man who led the fight in the U.S. Senate to preserve a “right to die” for Mrs. Schiavo. Mr. Schindler, however, tirelessly fought to preserve his daughter’s right to life.
I find it distasteful that the headline of this de-facto obituary led the casual reader to believe Mr. Schindler was in favor of a cause he fought tooth and nail against for more than 15 years.
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