Boondoggle
Mayor Cherelle Parker announced an $800 million Housing Opportunities Made Easy (HOME) to build or repair 30,000 homes. It’s going to be interesting to see how many houses become available out of the $800 million. Splitting it among 7 different agencies becomes rather costly. Each agency has its own staff with payroll, benefits and pensions. Then you add in the hard cost of rent, utilities and supplies. And that’s only the beginning. How many of the agencies will eventually overlap in their jobs, wasting more money. Again the government is going where it shouldn’t be going. This should be handled by private industry where they worry about costs, not by public agencies that will lobby for an increase in funding every year until they finally don’t accomplish the job.
Richard Donofry
East Torresdale
Ban bribery
I am writing to thank Reps. Jared Solomon (D-Philadelphia) and Jim Rigby (R-Cambria) for introducing House Bill 744, a gift ban bill in the Pennsylvania Legislature. The legislation bans elected officials from taking any item worth more than $50 or gifts of cash. Lobbyists have been bribing our public officials with expensive trips to political conferences at expensive hotels like the Ritz-Carlton and even Arizona for the Super Bowl. Lobbyists then use loopholes to avoid disclosure, hiding their dirty deeds from the voting public. Pennsylvania is one of only three states that doesn’t ban lobbyists’ gift giving.
This is the 38th attempt in the past quarter-century to ban gifts. Legislative support for a gift ban gets killed in a maze of committees, even with 29 legislators co-sponsoring versions of the gift ban. Fourteen legislators have bravely signed the March on Harrisburg Gift Ban Pledge, but there is still a lack of political will. You can fix that. Call House Majority Leader Matt Bradford at 610-270-1150 and Speaker of the House Joanna McClinton at 215-748-6712 and let them know that you’re tired of the Capitol’s culture of corruption. You want House Bill 744 passed into law.
Jayson Massey
Nicetown
Buy American
Every shopper knows that the marketplace determines what is sold in America and at the places where we shop. Today, cash register technology provides immediate reports to business owners of what’s being sold and what is not being sold.
If an item is being purchased, it’s replaced so it’s available for future customers. If an item is not being purchased, the store will focus on reordering items that are being sold. By seeking out and buying the American-made items you need, you are helping determine what will be stocked in the future at the stores where you shop.
The entire Buy American Made Campaign is directed to ensure that more American-made items are circulated in our stores as we work to promote the American-made label and reduce the massive build-up of foreign items that have filled our stores for too long.
Our message is very basic and has been very effective. It demonstrates that we are working for the benefit of American workers and the importance of encouraging businesses that are expanding operations in America to do even more to get American-made products sold in the United States.
The new global economy has brought about a lot of competition, which is good; however, in order to restore jobs in the United States, we, “America’s Consumers,” have to direct more of our purchasing power to support America’s private sector businesses that have the ability to restore the 50/50 balance between foreign and American-made items that we so often promote.
Thanks for spreading the word. Your comments and suggestions are always welcome.
Email them to [email protected].
Michael Blichasz
Torresdale
