The president's class-warfare strategies are a divisive attempt to win re-election by driving a wedge between those that have a little taste of middle-class life and those who should be striving to get there.
Donald J. O'Grady
Elkins Park, Pa.
He's no wizard
In my opinion, the Daily News was going easy on him when they called Gov. Corbett the "Tin Man" for not having a heart by cutting welfare cash payments on August 1st. Some may see him as the "Cowardly Lion" for not being able to stand up to his own party members and do things correctly for the citizens of Pennsylvania. And when he does more spending on prisons than education, can't you hear him singing, "If I only had a brain"?
Mayer Krain
Philadelphia
COLA fizz and fuss
I find it completely amazing that City Council gets a COLA raise every year. Not bad for those who are making near or over a hundred grand already!
I retired from the Police Department; my relatively small pension (for 29 years) has had only one very modest increase. The city claims that the cost of living hadn't gone up in all that time. I wonder why City Council manages to get an increase every year, and none of us peons have ever seen another one. Certainly our cost of living has gone up.
The city should either give us small retirees the increases it has given to Council, or tie Council into the same COLA that we are stuck with.
William Palmer
Philadelphia
Isn't it surprising that City Council waited until after the election to take their COLA raise? Why didn't they do it before they ran for re-election? DiCicco saw the writing on the wall and withdrew; Rizzo was defeated in the primary over the DROP program.
City Council makes anywhere between $117,000 and $150,000per year, plus a car, car insurance, free gas, plus all the other perks. The city workers haven't had a contract or raise since 2009; the firefighters are on their second arbitration award and Nutter might appeal that as well. Police and firefighters' starting pay is around the mid-$40s.The blue-collar workers are probably in the same range or less. But Council feels that they deserve a raise. Instead of Kenney worrying about a statement made by Dan Cathy, president of Chick-fil-A, he should worry about the City of Phil-A. Maybe find some ways to cut taxes instead of making our temporary ones permanent.Go after the deadbeat landlords.
Mario Marchetti
Philadelphia
Shrinking subsidies
Thank you for your article detailing the Corbett administration's track record in funding services designed to help move women and children out of poverty.
Readers might like to know that child-care subsidy is funded through a state-federal partnership. Not only has state's contribution declined by one-fifth since the recession began in 2008, but the federal share is in jeopardy.
Under the congressional debt-reduction law known as sequestration, Pennsylvania is slated to lose funding that subsidizes more than 4,500 children who currently attend child care. In addition, 3,300 Head Start slots would be lost, despite the program's successful track record moving not one, but two generations out of poverty. Typically, a third of these funds support children in southeastern Pennsylvania.
PCCY urges federal and state officials to work vigorously across party lines to prevent any further loss of funds for these crucial services. At the federal level this means ending the Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthiest 2 percent while protecting moderate-income families from further taxes. At the state level it will require restoring cuts to child-care subsidy in next year's budget.
Christie Balka
Director of Advocacy
Public Citizens for Children and Youth
U.S.A.! U.S.A.!
Kudos to us Americans. Over the past eight years we have developed a higher degree of tolerance. Remember back in 2004 when presidential candidate John Kerry was filmed riding a windsurfing board and was derided and pilloried as being an out-of- touch elitist snob?
This year Mitt Romney and his wife, Anne, have what amounts to a dancing horse (dressage) entered into the Olympics in London and not a word about them being out-of-touch elitist snobs. Kudos, America. And neither one is riding this horse in the Olympics: they've hired a guy to do that for them, obviously one of the many jobs created by the wealthy "job creators" whose income must not be taxed so that they can create more jobs.
The guy they've hired to ride the horse must have heard of Mr. Romney's campaign quote, "I like being able to fire people who provide services to me. You know, if someone doesn't give me a good service that I need, I want to say, ‘I'm going to go get someone else to provide that service to me.' "
Talk about pressure. But kudos again, America, for leaving out the elitist snob stuff.
Roy Lehman
Woolwich Township, N.J.
