Featured Commentary category, Page 80
Margaret Zylka House: Running in her shoes
The past few weeks have been hard for the running community, a community of over 60 million Americans, as we bear the heartbreaking loss of Eliza Fletcher, who was abducted and killed while on an early-morning run in Memphis. I began running more than 30 years ago in the sixth...
Counterpoint: Let’s cut the military budget, just don’t call it ‘defund’
There is an excellent argument that the “defund” trope has become so politicized that it now gets in the way of, rather than advances, policy advocacy of any stripe. But that doesn’t mean we should reflexively dismiss the underlying idea that government funds should be shifted away from wasteful or...
Point: We should reform, not defund, necessary institutions
Sir Isaac Newton’s Third Law of Motion states that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. While Newton was describing this phenomenon in relation to physics, the basic principle also applies to society in general. For instance, after the death of George Floyd in 2020, many municipalities...
Peter Morici: Biden’s green energy subsidies will boost inflation, distort investment
Democrats can head into the midterms touting the CHIPS Act and new green-energy and health-care legislation, dubbed the Inflation Reduction Act, but these forays into industrial policy will likely stoke inflation and distort capital investment. As passed, the IRA should increase revenue and reduce Medicare drug spending by $767 billion...
Cal Thomas: Another Irish exodus
DUBLIN — Americans are not the only ones suffering from high fuel and food prices, along with rapidly increasing costs for housing and rising mortgage rates. The Irish, too, are experiencing a similar economic squeeze, but unlike Americans who can reduce financial pressures and move to states with no state...
Michael Butler: Shell ethylene cracker complex shows value of never giving up
The French writer Victor Hugo once called perseverance “the secret of all triumphs.” Those words came to mind as I read that Shell this year expects to open its estimated $10 billion ethylene cracker complex in Beaver County outside Pittsburgh. It’s been a decade since the company announced the site...
Patrick Beaty: Pa. voters deserve all the facts on proposed constitutional amendments
Earlier this summer, the Pennsylvania Bureau of Elections posted a notice on its website about six proposed constitutional amendments approved by the General Assembly in its 2021-22 session. As our Constitution requires, the Elections Bureau then sent this official notice to newspapers across the commonwealth so it could be published...
Dennis Roddy: Dead monarch a hit in London
LONDON — Life might be for the living, but death is enjoying a renaissance here. People are lining up for miles to stare at the queen’s coffin and be inspired. The late queen’s utterances, calculatedly unremarkable in life, are imbued by commentators with a Lincolnesque aura. This is dangerous. The...
John Eckenrode: Pa.’s state prison staffing crisis shows no sign of ending
Pennsylvanians are getting back to work. The economy is on the rebound. Pennsylvania’s unemployment rate is now lower than its pre-pandemic level. That’s great news, but not for everyone, including those who work some of the most dangerous jobs in the commonwealth. Right now, the commonwealth’s prison system continues to...
Veronika Dolar: Does raising the minimum wage kill jobs?
California’s new fast-food law is expected to lead to a higher minimum wage for the industry in the state — as high as $22 in 2023, up from $15 as of September 2022. While backers say the law is necessary to ensure fair wages and treatment in California’s fast-food industry,...
Dennis Roddy: Queen’s death sends Britain into muted mourning
LONDON — Queen Elizabeth’s death came off flawlessly, a passing anticipated for so long that it was code-named for a landmark the British sold to a wealthy American who moved it to Arizona and turned it into a tourist attraction 50 years ago. London Bridge still stands, albeit in Arizona....
Steve Corbin: Citizens are united and legislators don’t represent us
According to the most recent data from Pew Research Center, National Election Studies, Gallup, ABC/The Washington Post, CBS/New York Times and CNN polls, only one-fifth of Americans say they trust the federal government to do what is right. The June 12 headline from a NBC News article sums it up:...
Joel Kotkin and Marshall Toplansky: Can space save Earth?
The world economy is in the doldrums, pessimism is rife around the world and most young people, according to one survey, believe climate change means the end of human life on Earth. Yet, a better future beckons, if we can only begin to look outside ourselves and even beyond our...
Bincheng Mao: Gorbachev valued positive change over power and inspired generations
When East Germans defied Soviet domination with the Leipzig march in 1989, they were chanting an unlikely slogan. “Gorbi, Gorbi!” they shouted in a celebratory tone, referring to then-Soviet Union President Mikhail Gorbachev. The brave demonstrators were hungry for democracy and freedom. Yet, they chose to voice their ideals using...
Cal Thomas: Britain has lost its rock
Watching BBC and Sky News coverage of the death of Queen Elizabeth II, one is struck by the adjectives used by reporters, commentators and people interviewed outside Balmoral castle and Buckingham Palace: sense of duty, virtue, integrity, service. What astounds is that these and other character traits the late queen...
Christopher Beem: Virtue signaling isn’t same as virtue — it actually furthers partisan divide
In a speech on July 23, 2022, before the Conservative Political Action Committee, or CPAC, Sen. Ted Cruz introduced himself to the audience with the words, “My name is Ted Cruz and my pronoun is kiss my ass.” In 2019, the Vermont College of Fine Arts appealed to a different...
Sen. Scott Martin: Bipartisan education reforms set up students for success
As a father, one of my highest priorities is ensuring my kids have real opportunities to chase their dreams and achieve whatever they can possibly imagine. Most parents I know share these same feelings. To help all families meet those goals, state lawmakers need to make sound policy decisions that...
Baruch Stein: Benjamin Netanyahu and Donald Trump
Donald Trump is currently targeted by more than 15 separate legal proceedings, including proceedings in Georgia pertaining to election interference, financial cases in New York, an FBI investigation reportedly pertaining to his handling of classified information, and cases brought by police officers, members of Congress and the NAACP over the...
Jane Ladley: How my 8-year lawsuit helped settle public employees’ rights
This Labor Day felt different. For the first time in eight years, I celebrated with family and friends without also battling the state’s largest labor union in court. My long journey through the legal system ended this spring — and its result is relevant to thousands of public employees across...
Sen. Ryan Aument: To curb student debt, reduce college costs
Opponents of President Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan are missing the mark on why it’s a bad idea. Complaining that it is unfair to those who paid their loans, or to those who didn’t attend college, while correct, merely empowers the other side to slap back with a major dose...
Nathan Benefield: Government unions are outsized bullies holding workers, taxpayers hostage
As we enter election season, it’s time we address the elephant in the room. It’s an elephant with an outsized influence on Pennsylvania politics — and few people realize who holds the purse strings and the puppet strings behind the scenes. Government union executives. These union executives enjoy a host...
Paul F. Clark: Today’s workers want a voice at work
It has been a very eventful 12 months for American workers since last Labor Day. At that point in time, the “Great Resignation” was well underway. Spurred by covid, millions of American workers had quit their jobs in the months before Labor Day and millions more would resign in the...
Kenneth J. Broadbent, David Callahan and Jim Snell: Pa. natural gas and labor, forging a reliable, sustainable energy future
While President Grover Cleveland did not make it a federal holiday until June of 1894, Labor Day was first celebrated in New York City on Sept. 5, 1882. Nearly 400 miles away that same year, natural gas from the historic Haymaker No. 1 well in Murrysville was delivered to consumers...
Point: Unions have a stake in ending minority rule in the United States
In 2021, just 10.3% of American workers were members of unions, less than half the proportion we had four decades prior. This collapse in union membership didn’t happen in Canada; it occurred in the United States for reasons specific to this country, including unpleasant changes in labor law and the...
Counterpoint: A free marketeer’s love of Labor Day
One hundred forty years ago, the first Labor Day parade almost ended before it began. On Sept. 5, 1882, thousands of union workers, police officers and gawking onlookers gathered at City Hall in lower Manhattan. Everything was in place, the route was set and the marchers were ready to go,...
