Sounding off: Hunting opener, presidents, 'woke,' wages, secondhand smoke on readers' minds

Presidents have no control over inflation

Inflation, we are told, results when people spend too much money, driving up prices; too much money chasing too few goods. Wall Street wants to cure it by hammering on working people. The Federal Reserve raises interest rates, in effect sending every employer a memo saying it’s time to lay people off. People without jobs can’t spend, demand for goods and services falls, and prices stop rising.

This is crazy because there are other ways to stop inflation. Companies can hire more people and increase production. Companies aren’t doing this because corporate managers are using their profits to buy back their stock instead. They get most of their pay in stock, and so driving up stock prices makes them happy.

Throwing people out of work is also crazy because workers aren’t the ones raising prices. Forty years ago, a group of us had the chance to ask the former CEO of one of the country’s major manufacturing companies how he set prices. Without batting an eye he answered, “Whatever the market will bear.” In other words, if the market will accept higher prices because workers are making more, then just take some of that money. You may have noticed that every time Social Security payments increase, your health insurance payments go up.

President Biden doesn’t own any oil refineries, baby formula factories or health insurance companies. Neither did President Trump. Just as Wall Street blames workers for something they have no control over, voters blame inflation on presidents who have little control over it. Folks, this is no way to run a railroad.

Robert Supansic

McKeesport

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Time to move deer hunting opener back to Monday

State Rep. Brian Smith, R-Punxsutawney, and Sen. Lisa Boscola, D-Bethlehem, have both announced plans to introduce legislation to move the opening day of Pennsylvania’s rifle deer season back to its traditional Monday after Thanksgiving. These legislators and others have recognized through considerable constituent contacts from hunters and businesses that moving the deer opener has had significant negative hunting and economic consequences.

The Pennsylvania Game Commission moved the opener to the Saturday after Thanksgiving in 2019. That weekend of Black Friday and Small Business Saturday is important for rural small businesses. Many hunters (840,000 statewide) previously used that weekend to travel and make final preparations, which brought money in.

Hunting license sales since the change have not significantly increased as was anticipated by the game commission. In fact, since the anomaly hunting license upward spike in 2020 resulting from covid, general sales have dropped a stunning 42,432 licenses.

Many fire departments and churches utilized the mass influx of hunters into their communities that weekend to hold fundraisers. Some rural counties have more hunting camps than permanent residences. Hunter dollars are very important.

Finally, having only one day after Thanksgiving, the most traveled family holiday of the year, took away important social time from families.

The move to Saturday was a mistake. The original Monday rifle deer opening day was indeed well thought out by our forefathers.

Randy Santucci

McKees Rocks

Dan Davila

Boardman, Ohio

The writers are founders of Hunters to Reinstate the Monday Deer Opener and Pennsylvania Hunters Against the Saturday Deer Opener.

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Saturday deer opener works fine

Regarding the letter “Time to move deer hunting opener back to Monday” (March 19, TribLIVE): Twenty or 30 years ago I might have agreed with you. Back then, there were still a lot of hunters traveling north to hunt. We have a family hunting camp in Potter County, and we have watched hunting decline since the introduction of concurrent buck and doe seasons and antler restrictions. This was well before the move to a Saturday opener.

Why not introduce a bill to move Thanksgiving? We could move it to August — there are no holidays in August, and the weather is more suitable to travel. Then November would be free for a Saturday opener, with no holidays in the way. Or you could make the most of it and get creative. Have turkey dinner at camp if Thanksgiving means that much to you.

I was against the antler restrictions, but we had that forced down our throats. I am against concurrent buck and doe season and again, forced on us. Religious people are against Sunday hunting, and I’m sure they feel as though it was forced on them.

A Saturday opener helps hunters who have to miss opening day because of work. I was disciplined enough to save vacation for buck season.

Why not just let it be? You are not going to recapture the magic of buck camp; there ain’t enough hunters anymore. If you’ve hunted since the first day was moved, then you adapted, and a few years from now it will be a tradition.

Thomas Wian

Hempfield

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We’ve gone from best president to worst

It seems that our country has been going down the wrong road for the past two years. Joe Biden has proven himself incompetent over and over again. From the skyrocketing prices of fuel, groceries and other essentials to the mishandling of our southern border to the sloppy pullout in Afghanistan, we have witnessed a person incapable of making good decisions for our great country.

We have traded the best modern-day president, Donald Trump, for the worst president in the history of our country. Trump seemed to have control of things during his time in office; Biden is out of control.

Let’s hope the voters are more careful the next time around in 2024.

Dave Burdis

Charleroi

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‘Woke’ lends itself to weaponization

One reads with interest the column “The problem with the word woke” (March 10, TribLIVE). Lori Falce decries how a word supposedly “meant to be about opening eyes turned into a club.” Such linguistic weaponization, however, might be implicit in the term “woke” itself.

Merriam-Webster defines “woke” as “aware of and actively attentive to important facts and issues (especially issues of racial and social justice).” Given that definition, the term “woke” itself is easily understood not just as describing an eye-opening process but also as an insult meaning that those who do not participate in or fully agree with the movement are either unaware of or inattentive to important issues. Such a potentially pejorative understanding apparently underlies both the “wokier” behavior of those on the political left and the aggressive response by those on the political right.

Perhaps greater self-awareness by those who proclaim their own “woke” status might lead to an understanding that a person who disagrees, in whole or in part, with their point of view is not necessarily a somnambulist merely passing through life unaware of the challenges facing our society. The problem may not be the words used to describe societal movements but rather with the all too apparent unwillingness of partisans on both sides to verbally abuse rather than substantively address the positions of others.

Until that underlying issue is resolved, retiring any specific word will not change the process whereby the label affixed to any viewpoint, whether voluntarily selected or imposed, inexorably becomes a badge of honor for the proponents and a target for the opponents.

David Thomas

Bradford Woods

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UPMC shouldn’t wait to raise wages

Recently, UPMC announced it would increase its minimum wage to $18 by 2026. While I agree wages should be raised, we can’t wait three years for it to happen.

We are in the middle of a critical hospital staffing shortage. Many of my co-workers who’ve left say they’re leaving because they’re underpaid. I don’t blame them. I’m making $18 an hour after four years. New hires make significantly less. But between rent and inflation, I’m just getting by.

We work hard to keep our community healthy; our wages should reflect that. When UPMC can’t staff environmental or nutritional service workers, or transporters or technical staff or nurses, more employees leave. More feel overworked, more feel underpaid and the cycle repeats.

UPMC just pushes the problem around. To different units. To newer staff. To traveling staff. But most of all: to less staff.

The only people making a dime off this phenomenon are the executives. While workers struggle to do more with less, executives have increased their salaries by millions.

UPMC’s billion-dollar profits should be used to invest in staff at every level, not line the pockets of a few.

Quincy Schlosser

Greenfield

The writer is a UPMC patient care technician.

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Casino workers should be protected from smokers

I am writing on behalf of Pennsylvania casino workers who are working in secondhand smoke on a daily basis . I lost my mother in 2015 due to COPD. I am also pushing this cause in her honor to save others from this terrible lung condition.

Casino workers love their jobs and deserve the same smoke-free environment as every other business in the state, yet we’re left out of the Clean Indoor Air Act of 2008. During the pandemic, having fresh, clean air in the casino was a real treat, and many workers and patrons were pleased.

Why was the smoking ban temporary? Wasn’t that a perfect time to make it permanent? Didn’t the pandemic remind us how important health is? Why would we bring back something that everyone knows is hazardous to our health after the world experienced a pandemic?

Casino workers deserve to work in a pleasant and healthy environment permanently. We shouldn’t have to choose between our health and a paycheck. Our job is to entertain our casino patrons with a smile; however, some workers continue to work in masks to protect themselves from the smoke, and their smiles are hidden. This is depressing and heartbreaking, especially in an entertainment venue where people want to have a good time.

I am asking that people please reach out to their reps and ask them to co-sponsor Rep. Dan Frankel’s Protecting Workers From Secondhand Smoke Act for the health and welfare of casino workers and patrons and the return of many smiles.

Jennifer Rubolino

Robinson

The writer is a table games dealer.