Letters: Congress in chaos; PSU, PA Lottery partnership a travesty

Editor’s note: The CDT welcomes letters endorsing candidates in the Nov. 7 election and will accept letters that are received by Oct. 30. Letters are subject to editing, must be based on facts and should avoid attacks on other candidates.

Congress in chaos

Congress is in total chaos! Our politicians are acting like a bunch of children who throw tantrums when they don’t get their own way. Some of them are nothing short of dictators. It’s time for them to grow up and start acting like responsible adults and do what they were elected to do!

This mentality of “it’s my way or the highway” has got to stop right now. Some of these representatives are nothing but power-hungry bullies who want the rest of their party members to follow their lead, or else.

We have a totally non-functioning federal government because our “representatives” can’t work together. The result is that they are incapable of governing our country the way that it should be governed. Our representatives are not representing their constituents. They don’t care about what the voters want, because their only interest is their own agenda.

We demand teamwork from the representatives of both parties to work together to resolve our nation’s problems and stop holding us hostage for their own personal gain. You can’t win if everyone is only interested in glory for themselves rather than the whole team.

Our democracy is in deep trouble and it will only get worse if our representatives continue this childish behavior.

The time is now for term limits. Some of these long-term representatives are dictators and need to go.

We hired them and we can fire them!

PSU, PA Lottery partnership a travesty

Penn State’s partnership with the Pennsylvania Lottery is both a travesty and another example of a poor decision made by the university’s leadership at Old Main. If President Neeli Bendapudi approved this, she should publicly explain why. If she did not approve Penn State’s partnership with the Pennsylvania Lottery she should demonstrate true leadership by quashing this travesty immediately. If President Bendapudi chooses to ignore all of this, We Are expecting her to explain why.

Support public schools

Our public schools and teachers should not be feared. They teach equal respect and treatment for all American students, just as our Constitution states. This means the freedom to live as one chooses, to learn history fully, and to live cooperatively as a society. Students over time develop into responsible adults who think critically and sensibly for themselves as they explore their potentials. They come to appreciate the rights of others to be different from themselves and to respect their right to be treated equally.

Teaching never has been just about reading, writing and arithmetic. The bigger story is the formation of a free-standing and socially responsible person. Fairness, mutual respect and honesty are cultivated by teachers over the years, though there is no data set to track this accomplishment. Teachers urge students to be themselves as fully as possible and pursue their own individual happiness.

On the other hand, moving away from public schooling all too often now means moving toward intolerance and disrespect for different people. It often means looking at the world through the narrow blinders of a horse and buggy, seeing only what you want to see. The likely outcome can be discrimination — which is against the law.

Remember the foundational principles of our state and nation: equality and fairness in the pursuit of happiness for each and every one of us. Our public schools and teachers need our support, both financially and morally. The principle is simple: Love one another.

Mailer misinformation

A recent mailer showcases the tenuous relationship between Centre County Republicans and truth.

In only a fantasy ballgame do Republicans score a “home run” with no accomplishments listed, while Democrats “strike out” based on undefined and unsupported claims. Like spaghetti thrown on a wall, the mailer is a mishmash of lies, distortions and attacks.

Start with claims about national policies. Violent crime rates are generally down; homicides were down 9% in the first half of this year over the same period last year, per the Council on Criminal Justice.

The Green New Deal isn’t a failure. Only MAGA Republicans deny climate change, despite scientific consensus that human activity poses an existential threat. Democrats haven’t weaponized courts; it is the indicted former president who tried to use the Justice Department to make knowingly false claims of election fraud.

Numerous claims about state and local government are sensational and untrue. Pennsylvania’s flat income tax is among the lowest in the nation – and there’s no tax on retirement income. There’s been no defunding of local police, and according to the county office of Adult Service’s annual Point-in-Time count, homelessness (sheltered and unsheltered) is down slightly from last year while services have increased!

School district awards show the absurdity of county Republicans decrying “failing test scores” due to “school board negligence.” U.S. News & World Report named SCASD a Best High School (scoring 93/100); Radio Park Elementary is a 2023 National Blue Ribbon School.

Voters won’t be fooled by Republican nonsense!