Mergers inevitable

Editor: Approximately 60 percent of the Scranton budget is for police and fire protection. Rather than imposing a commuter tax to help offset these disproportionate costs, is it not feasible to create a regional public safety authority to distribute the cost burden of these services over a larger number of residents?

Each year the problem becomes more acute as Scranton's population continues to decrease. All we are doing is kicking the can down the road.

Eventually, Scranton ( if it survives at all ) will become one part of a regional political entity where public safety and municipal services are streamlined.

A countywide sales tax, an alternative to the commuter tax, is in fact one step closer to fiscal regionalization. I think the time is long past where our political leaders can turn their collective heads away from the realities of municipal regionalization.



No half efforts

Editor: I can't believe the Mountain View soccer coach was suspended for two games apparently because his team wins games by large margins.

What kind of a society do we now live in where kids playing a game are told to play at only half speed after they get a big lead?

Kids should learn to work hard at all times when playing sports. Lopsided defeats are part of the game. I'm sure none of the players on the losing teams need counseling or anything. Sometimes, losing by a wide margin is easier to move on from than a close loss in which players may blame themselves.

Maybe soccer should have a 10-goal rule like in softball or baseball. But if the clock is still running, then I would expect both teams to continue to play at full speed.

Life isn't always easy. By making it easy on kids now they will expect it later in life.

The people who should be held accountable are the league officials who moved the team down to play against clearly overmatched opponents.



Euphemism fatigue

Editor: Once upon a time we were allowed to employ language freely to convey information; sadly, we now live in an era of political correctness that demands that everything we say must first pass through a "euphemization" filter to ensure that the output could not possibly cause discomfort to anyone.

As a case in point, The Times-Tribune is chided by a reader (Your Opinion, Oct. 16) for failing to use "people-first" language (clearly an invention of the PC police), which, for example, dictates the use of "child with a disability" rather than "disabled child."

Why, you ask? Because, the reader tells us, placing "disabled" before "child" emphasizes the child's "uniqueness" rather than his "personhood." Seriously?

To my mind, PC-compliant wording is neither respectful nor sensitive to the disabled. Rather, it is condescending in that it suggests that the disability is so horrible that we dare not refer to it in a simple and direct manner. Perhaps most patronizing of all is the use of "special" in describing children with mental or physical defects.

Unknown to most people is that terms such as "idiot," "imbecile," and "moron" were originally offered as technical substitutes for such pejoratives as "feebleminded." In time, however, they acquired their own negative connotations and so were replaced by "retardate," later corrupted to "retard." Similarly, "crippled" became "handicapped" and later, "disabled."

It's a lesson in futility: whatever euphemism we choose, soon enough it will be perceived as an insult and need to be replaced by yet another euphemism.

As proof, consider that some people insist on softening "disabled" to "challenged" or to the ridiculous "differently abled." Can it be euphemized any further? I propose "non-preferred congenital variation."



Just fix for SS

Editor: Social Security is funded by a tax. Income over $110,000 is exempt from this tax.

Dividend and capital gains income is exempt from this tax.

If this tax loophole for the wealthy were eliminated Social Security would be solvent indefinitely at present rates of contribution and ages of retirement. Revenues of the fund would double.

The increase in revenue could be invested by a subcommittee of the Federal Reserve made up of proven investment experts.

This would be far better than the Republican plan of letting each individual invest his own funds. This Republican plan would result in huge costs to individuals including fees to mutual funds and investment advisers, and would result in many people prematurely spending their retirement funds.

Mr. Romney made over $13 million last year and paid Social Security tax on about 1 percent. Nearly every reader of this letter paid this tax on 100 percent of his or her wages.

I am simply asking that people in his earning group pay what everyone else pays.

Vote for the party most likely to rectify this injustice.



Classless ploy

Editor: I thought that I saw everything but this one beats everything else. Donald Trump said he will give $5 million to President Obama's charity if the president will release his passport and college transcripts. This is a sad attack on the president.

I am 65 years old and I have never seen these kinds of questions ever being asked to any other president.

I did not vote for George W. Bush nor did I believe in all of his policies but I respected the office of the president enough so as not to make any demands on his qualifications or inquire if he passed third grade math before being elected to the highest office in the United States.

No matter party affiliation, one should know this is not the proper thing to do to any president. If you cannot see what is going on I feel sorry for you.

I would like to have Mr. Trump show us his last five years of taxes and his school transcripts.