Letters to the editor: Leaked SCOTUS draft, income taxes, Lake Monroe, child tax credit
Leaked draft evidence of SCOTUS politicization
With SCOTUS about to formally cede abortion rights to the individual states, Republican-dominated state legislatures will be taking breaks from gerrymandering and voter suppression to enact draconian abortion prohibitions.
It’s a race to the bottom with the prize of being able to boast of being the “first with the worst.” The leaked SCOTUS draft provides that abortion rights should be determined by the “elected representatives” in state legislatures. This is disingenuous at best and cynical at worst. The very people who will be most adversely affected by banning abortions are the very people Republican legislatures have eagerly voted to disenfranchise — the poor and minorities.
The certain five- and possibly six-justice SCOTUS majority to leave abortion policy to the states includes three justices appointed by a president who lost by over 3 million votes but won due to the vagaries of the Electoral College. But he didn’t do it alone. Senate Republicans, including Mike Braun and Todd Young, slavishly followed Mitch McConnell’s connivance in the politicization of SCOTUS. The leaked draft, by whomever is responsible, is a result of that politicization.
Charles Aiken, Bloomington
Increased income tax is another blow to middle class
I am a city and county resident. Like many, my property taxes have increased dramatically in the past five years contributing to the county’s record tax haul. A major employer in town, Indiana University, has not significantly raised salaries of its "middle class" very much, if at all, in recent years. Inflation has raised consumer prices at least 8.5% in the past year and gas prices have risen considerably more.
Now our county sees fit to raise income taxes?
Last time I wrote in this space, it was to defend President Biden. In the last federal election, I wrote-in Bernie Sanders because he articulated a plan that helps lower and moderate income people.
Now I can’t help but wonder if there are local political candidates that understand the forces that erode the middle class — namely, creeping taxes, stagnant wages, ever increasing health care costs and spiking inflation.
Like many families, we will tighten our budget, reduce discretionary spending, and hope for better governance.
Matt Guschwan, Bloomington
Help prioritize Lake Monroe watershed projects
Over two years ago, public input helped guide the development of the Lake Monroe Watershed Management Plan. The plan is now available (see https://friendsoflakemonroe.org/watershed-plan), summarizing the available data, identifying the top threats to water quality, and outlining an action plan to reduce non-point source pollution. The plan will serve as a guide to implement projects over the next 20 years to achieve water quality goals for the lake.
We are again asking for public input, this time to help prioritize project implementation and to mobilize our community to take action. Do you have an interest in the sustainability of Lake Monroe? We hope you will be able to participate in one of the public meetings to share your ideas and show your support:
Thursday, June 9, NASHVILLE; 6:45-8:30 pm; Brown County Library, 205 Locust Lane, Nashville
Wednesday, June 15, VIRTUALLY; 6:45-8:30 pm; Zoom link will be sent in advance
The forums are sponsored by the Friends of Lake Monroe and the Leagues of Women Voters of Bloomington-Monroe County and Brown County. Register at https://tinyurl.com/flmmtg.
Ann Birch, president, League of Women Voters of Bloomington-Monroe County
All Lives Matter street art case is a free speech issue
Mr. Shapiro (letter to the editor 5/15/22) apparently has an ability that no one else in the world has: being able to look inside the mind of Turning Point and Kyle Reynolds (or BLM) and determine their intent. NO ONE knows this, not even Mr. Shapiro. But their intent is irrelevant.
The only issue here is whether the city of Bloomington has the right to censor free speech and free expression of its citizens simply because it does not agree with their point of view on a particular issue. They do not! Free speech in this country cannot be prevented because one side does not agree with the other. This isn’t Russia or Nazi Germany. Though this seems to be the direction many would have us go.
Jeff Delaplane, Bloomington
What do mass killings accomplish?
The Buffalo shootings are yet another in quite a string of racially motivated killings. It is hard to imagine why, why someone would do this? Do they attract anyone to their cause? Do they prove that the pigment of one’s skin is of any importance to human beings? Beings who we commonly believe in their heart and soul to have an eternal existence, and this is what is really important in the eyes of the Eternal Creative Essence?
Do they end up ruining their own lives along with the people that they kill, while forever impacting the friends and families of all who might be connected? Do they create passionate searching? Deep, deep down there is a desire of almost everyone to create a better world. Yet all over the country there are many divergent beliefs that do not seem to be coming together? Do we need to step back and look for new understandings, putting on hold ideas we most love or hate? For years our eyes told us the world “had to be flat” but newly discovered sciences proved otherwise? We need similar, incredibly creative, new insights.
Humanity has endured much. We can generate better new possibilities.
Dan Enslow, Bloomington
Restore expanded child tax credit
From July to December last year, most families with children under 18 received monthly payments from the government as part of an expanded child tax credit. As a result, 3 million to 4 million children were kept from poverty, and child poverty fell by 40%. Families who received the CTC money spent it on food, utilities, housing, clothing, and education. Many families used the funds for child care so parents could work.
At the start of 2022, Congress failed to extend these credits, and 3.7 million children fell back below the poverty line. 1.4 million CTC households lost jobs when they could no longer afford child care. And as average $444 monthly CTC payments have expired, inflation is costing American families an extra $296 a month, a brutal one-two punch.
I know that's a lot of statistics, but the simple fact is that it's expensive to raise kids, and most new parents are young adults who don't make a whole lot of money. We know that being raised in poverty is bad for kids, and that's bad for our country's future. Congress must find a way to restore the expanded child tax credit.
Stephen Arnold, Bloomington
Speak with your vote
This country appears to hold more closely to its rights than ever before. Rights to not take the COVID vaccinations or wear masks, to own and carry whatever firepower they desire without a permit, and to create voting laws and maps to ensure targeted votes. We talk about the right to “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” (Declaration of Independence) The purpose of our Constitution is to “establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.”
Today, it seems those rights are being denied to the children, teachers, and parents of the Uvalde Elementary School, people in supermarkets, malls, schools, movie theaters, concerts, nightclubs, and houses of worship. Laws have been passed to protect the unborn. What about the born? I will no longer vote for any candidate for Congress who enables this denial of our rights or for a party whose National Committee fights against reasonable, responsible life-saving regulations regarding gun ownership. Nor will I vote for a representative or senator who doesn’t take a stand in favor of saving the basic rights and lives of their constituents.
Speak with your vote!
Barbara Anderson, Bloomington
Who should tend the poor?
In the Tuesday edition of The Herald-Times there was a column by Ray Golarz, "Whose job is it to tend to the poor?" Here in Bloomington the powers to be seem to think it is not their job.
I drive by Seminary Park and the homeless are there at almost all hours. When it became too many tents in the "tent city" Bloomington's answer was tear down the tent city. That does not solve the real problem: mental health.
Our mayor and city council should be ashamed of the job they are doing. We are seeing apartment buildings going up everywhere, annexation to increase the size of the town, and our old hospital being torn down because we are told it is not viable to use any longer; it was OK for the patients one day but the day they moved to the new hospital, it was no longer useful. Mayor John Hamilton has dropped the ball. We can not and should not depend on groups like Shalom and Wheeler Mission to pick up the slack because our mayor and city council are too busy with annexation and improving bike paths and tearing down buildings to take care of the problem.
As the old saying goes "a fish stinks from the head down." Who do you think is Bloomington's fish?
James McKinney, Bloomington
Fairness, not political bias, should be basis for judgments
The Archbishop of San Francisco has decided to deny Nancy Pelosi the precious sacrament of communion because of her stance on abortion rights. This move appears to be political and has no place in the Catholic Church. We as Catholics are taught that “Jesus will come again to judge the living and the dead.” We are not to judge each other; we are to praise God and to love and help each other.
If the Archbishop’s judgment is not politically motivated, he should apply his decrees fairly and also condemn those who break the eighth commandment of bearing false witness. Those politicians who refuse to speak out against the conspiracy theory that the 2020 election was rigged, amongst other false information campaigns, are complicit in undermining our democracy. Those politicians who gridlock legislation for clean energy are complicit in endangering God’s great creation to which we were given stewardship. And those politicians who refuse to investigate and help enact sensible gun laws, are complicit in the deaths by mass shootings of our fellow citizens.
If some church officials insist on assuming the judgmental authority of Jesus, let those judgments and condemnations be motivated by fairness and not by political bias.
Melinda Fish, Bloomington
This article originally appeared on The Herald-Times: Letters on SCOTUS leak, income tax increase, Lake Monroe, street art
