Featured Commentary category, Page 102
Treasurer Stacy Garrity and Sen. Lisa Baker: ABLE accounts give people with disabilities chance to save
People living with disabilities often face tremendous challenges. One is striking the right balance between paying for day-to-day needs and saving for larger expenses while not saving so much that they become ineligible for critical benefits. The federal Achieving a Better Life Experience (ABLE) Act of 2014 and the Pennsylvania...
Emily Burke: The explosive growth of home schooling
Parents are taking their children’s education into their own hands in record numbers after a disastrously tumultuous school year. The U.S. Census Bureau’s experimental Household Pulse Survey, which is an online survey recording social and economic impacts of the covid-19 pandemic, demonstrates a dramatic shift towards home schooling within the...
Rep. Emily Kinkead and Molly Parzen: Federal support needed for infrastructure and stormwater improvements
Recently our area was inundated with flooding due to stormwater. This, of course, is nothing new to us. Route 51 often turns into a river, the section of the Parkway known as “the bathtub” gets shut down, Union Avenue in Ross Township in my district turns into an impassable lake...
Laura Charos: With college, is it where you go or what you do?
Where you go to college seems to be the hype of today, with pressure placed on students to get into high-tier schools. Prestige is more important than ever to students and their parents, since many seem to believe it is the name of the school that will steer you toward...
Pete Saunders : The ‘best places to live’ may not be the best places to live
Newly released 2020 Census data give us a better sense of where Americans think the best places to live are. Cities such as Phoenix, Dallas, Houston and Las Vegas continue to be popular, maintaining the strong population growth that’s defined them for the last half-century. Others, such as Buffalo and...
Gov. Brian Kemp: ARC helps Georgia residents thrive
This commentary is part of a series from governors of the 13 states in the Appalachian Regional Commission. ARC is an economic development agency of the federal government and state governments focusing on 420 counties across the Appalachian Region. As a member state of the Appalachian Regional Commission , Georgia...
In honor of Fred Rogers, make kindness a habit this month with #BeKind21
Gregg Behr and Ryan Rydzewski are the authors of “When You Wonder, You’re Learning: Mister Rogers’ Enduring Lessons for Raising Creative, Curious, Caring Kids.” Dana Winters is executive director of the Fred Rogers Center. Maureen Frew is a teacher in the Avonworth School District and co-founder of JAMbethekindkid Inc. In...
Rep. Jessica Benham: It’s time to stop treating health care like a privilege
People from all walks of life are struggling to afford health care in this country. As it stands, many Pennsylvanians are forced to make impossible choices between accessing lifesaving prescription drugs or putting food on the table or paying rent. And seniors and people with disabilities are still denied vision,...
Geoffrey Pohanka: Clash of the titans, wind and coal
The headlines are clear: renewable energy is on the rise as a source of electricity for America and coal power is headed for the door. President Biden has set a goal 30,000MW of offshore wind by 2030, which is the equivalent of 2,500 12MW turbines, and this does not include...
Dr. Rosanne Granieri: Sexual harassment is not funny
Recently, we’ve all likely heard them. They are, unfortunately, the type of stories we’ve heard before. Television networks, magazines, online news sources and newspapers carried the details and subsequent fallout. Let’s start with alleged alleged escapades of Andrew Cuomo as New York governor. These stories finally ended with Cuomo’s departure...
J. Joseph Cullen: Best options for Pa.’s coal plant communities
Last week, a Pennsylvania State Senate Committee issued four pages of procedural objections about the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), a plan to reduce carbon pollution from power plants in the state. While the bureaucratic issues raised will be sorted out by the regulatory process and/or the courts, the committee...
Aron Solomon: Full FDA vaccine approval and the law
On Monday morning, the FDA gave full approval to the Pfizer covid-19 vaccine. This is an even faster approval than Pfizer has hoped for, as the most optimistic date had been early September. Until now, all covid-19 vaccines have had only EUA (emergency use authorization). Full approval of even one...
Sen. Kim Ward: Retroactive window for victims is no quick fix
Recently, I have been the focus of a targeted media campaign calling for passage of legislation to allow a retroactive “window” for civil lawsuits for past claims of childhood sexual abuse. The campaign has a simple message: The only path to helping these victims is this legislation. As a legislator...
Gov. Mike DeWine: Moving Appalachia Ohio forward
The Appalachian region of Ohio is diverse in both its landscapes and people. The 32 Ohio counties that make up Appalachian Ohio have terrain perfect for hiking and biking, beautiful waterways for boating or fishing, and even sandy beaches on our northern coast in Ashtabula. My wife Fran and I...
Amy Zimmerman: ‘Imposter syndrome’ at work
What would you do if as an employer, you learned that some of your most trusted and high-performing workers lived many of their days in great distress? How would you react if you found out that these seemingly happy and productive people perceived themselves as fraudsters, compromising the forward progress...
Michael Brevda: Nursing home reform legislation offers opportunity for better care
Lawmakers realize we have a pervasive nursing home abuse problem in America. Nursing home covid deaths are nearing 200,000. More glaringly, a bipartisan Senate investigation revealed that poor resident care is overwhelming clustered around less than 5% of the nation’s facilities. A disproportionate amount of neglect cases occur in nursing...
Sheldon Jacobson: Emotion gets in way of covid consensus
People tend to overestimate or underestimate risk. The pandemic brings this into stark relief. Picture someone wearing an N95 mask while walking their dog through a deserted park. Contrast that with someone entering a crowded bar maskless in an area with high coronavirus transmission rates. Risk is a function of...
David Super: Vietnam mistakes repeated in Afghanistan; we must break the cycle
The rapid collapse of the Afghan government has lessons to teach us, if we will listen. Many of these are lessons we could have learned from the Vietnam War, but we did not. In both Vietnam and Afghanistan, the enemy was very real. The Viet Minh began as a nationalist...
Rich Askey: Follow CDC mask-wearing guidance in Pa. schools
Pennsylvania’s public school educators and support professionals are looking forward to returning to school to welcome a new class of eager students to their classrooms. As we do so, we are at a crossroads. We look ahead with enthusiasm but recognize that, in order to make this school year successful...
Nicole Molinaro: Criminal justice system failing domestic violence victims
The article “Police: Desperate notes in Walmart, Fallingwater led to woman held captive” (July 16, TribLIVE) described incidents of violence that shocked the mind and the soul. Like others throughout our community, I was horrified to read about the extensive abuse this victim survived, including being held captive, multiple physical...
Greg Fulton: The day St. Franco was anointed
Similar to today, in 1972 our nation was polarized. The Vietnam War, the Equal Rights Amendment providing equality for all sexes and busing of children for integration were dividing lines for many. Then, on Dec. 23, something magical happened in Pittsburgh, what some would call an early Christmas present. According...
Sen. Devlin Robinson: Abandonment of Afghanistan shameful
Watching as Afghans clung to the sides of American transports during takeoff only to plummet to their deaths as their allies flew off Monday is a spectacle beyond bearing. I once fought on the very ground their falling bodies struck. I fought in Afghanistan, and many of my comrades did...
Jay Sefton: Pa. lawmakers must stop denying justice to abuse victims
Had I been sexually abused by Father Thomas Smith 20 miles east in New Jersey, 20 miles south in Delaware or 80 miles north in New York, I would have had the opportunity to seek justice. I could have held Catholic Church officials accountable for protecting a known pedophile instead...
Gov. Bill Lee: Collaborating to improve lives in Tennessee
Supporting Tennessee’s rural citizens has been a top priority of mine since I signed my very first executive order. Executive Order 1 required each state department to examine its impact on our rural communities and make recommendations on how to better serve rural Tennesseans. As a result, we have implemented...
Antony Davies: Pa.’s alcohol monopoly — we told you so
Defenders of the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board (PLCB) fought for decades against alcohol privatization efforts. Principal among these was Wendell Young IV, president of the United Food and Commercial Workers Pennsylvania Wine and Spirits Council — the union that represents state store workers. Despite numerous studies and polls to the...
