Friday's letters: Manatee twists honoring gun victims into Second Amendment proclamation
Manatee politicizes gun proclamation
The Manatee County commissioners did a great disservice to all of Manatee County during their May 23 meeting. They took a proclamation to honor victims of gun violence and turned it into a political stunt.
A bipartisan group of 18 local organizations submitted a proclamation request to make June 2 Gun Violence Awareness Day in Manatee County.
The original request focused on paying respect to all lives lost and affected by gun violence, including a reference to the high rate of gun suicide among Florida’s veterans.
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The commissioners modified the text so that it barely resembled the original version. They added politically charged language about the Second Amendment and Manatee County being a "gun sanctuary" county and removed any reference to the fact that every day an average of 120 Americans is killed and 200 are wounded by gun violence, according to Everytown for Gun Safety.
The commissioners did not acknowledge the horrible toll that gun suicides have on our communities and didn’t note the importance of wearing orange on June 2 in tribute to victims of gun violence.
In addition, contrary to normal decorum, they refused to award the proclamation to someone from the sponsoring groups who were in attendance.
We deserve better!
Mark Brown, Bradenton
Vouchers offer way out of feckless schools
Up to now I have been skeptical of initiatives for school vouchers. I believe a robust public education system is essential for a healthy democratic society.
But now I am seeing a solid reason for parents’ school choice supported by vouchers. I am referring to the responses of feckless school systems to the seemingly unending demands to ban books, often based on only a single parent’s complaint.
Most recently, Miami-Dade County Schools banned elementary school students’ access to National Youth Poet Laureate Amanda Gorman’s poem, “The Hill We Climb,” providing an example of where you do not want your children to attend school.
The poem was most likely banned not for its message but because it was written and recited by a young African American at the inauguration for a president whom the parent does not favor (President Joe Biden).
An ignorant, racist, extremist parent got his/her way in a school system lacking in principle and spine. Not a good look for Miami-Dade County Schools.
Giving parents in that school system the means to opt out is probably the best result I can see from the voucher program.
Randal Jacobson, Sarasota
Spending, how US became mired in debt
Basically, the government is spending more money than it takes in through taxes. How does the government spend its money?
Mandatory spending, dictated by previous law and fixed. It covers sacred programs such as Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.
Mandatory spending makes up two-thirds of the federal budget. Let’s be honest and admit that the greatest part of spending by the government is purely socialistic. Those Americans who hate socialism can drop out of these programs and we can solve the U.S. debt crisis easily.
2. Discretionary spending is voted on by Congress annually. This accounts for one-third of government spending.
Defense makes up half of the discretionary budget and is untouchable.
To reduce spending, the American public will need to accept spending less on veterans’ benefits, education, transportation safety, affordable housing, food security, agriculture safety, etc. Do you want that?
Our government representatives can take care of the debt in a heartbeat. However, there is a catch-22: If they raise taxes, they will be voted out of office. If they reduce benefits, they will be voted out of office.
America, you can’t have it all.
Charles Weiss, Sarasota
DeSantis not to blame for Disney loss
Once again, the anti-Gov. Ron DeSantis crowd is piling on with a false narrative, this time about the latest Disney move to forgo moving part of its California operation to Florida.
The New York Times, the Herald-Tribune and letter writers are wrong. Moving some of Disney’s operations, including the so-called Imagineers, to Florida was an idea of the previous CEO, Bob Chapek. But Bob Iger, the current CEO, never liked the idea of moving those employees away from proximity to the Disney movie studios.
What Iger has done is what he’s paid to do: He made a business decision.
He did what he believed to be in the best interests of Disney with little or no regard to conflicts with Gov. DeSantis.
Once again, DeSantis haters, you’ve swung and missed.
Dana A. Cyr, Sarasota
This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: Gun violence proclamation becomes political tool
