Letters to the Editor | June 1, 2026

President Donald Trump has once again punished any member of Congress who refuses to bend to his will by successfully defeating incumbent U.S. Sens. John Cornyn and Bill Cassidy and U.S. Rep. Thomas Massie in recent primaries. Republicans are confronted with the choice of remaining totally obsequious or asserting their constitutional independence by standing up to Trump. All it would take is five GOP members of the House and 20 senators to form a compact putting Trump on notice that if he goes after any one of them for speaking their mind or following their conscience, all of them will join with Democrats and remove him from office.

Donald Kelly, Havertown

In their recent op-ed, Walter Tsou and Jose DeMarco urged us to contact our elected officials to address the One Big Beautiful Bill Act’s cuts to Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). In Pennsylvania, one way to advocate for these two programs is to ask our state senators to support the $1.36 billion increase for the Department of Human Services that Gov. Josh Shapiro requested in February, and that the Pennsylvania House approved in April. A significant part of this increase will cover the escalation in medical and prescription costs for the three million low-income residents in the state.

Additional money would also be used to cover administrative costs for the SNAP program that have now shifted onto the state. This increase will help lower the state’s error rates in SNAP, which could lead to reduced federal payments to the program. Advocating for these increases in the state budget allows us to be proactive in protecting current SNAP and Medicaid recipients. You can find your state senators and their contact information by going to palegis.us/find-my-legislator.

Coleman Poses, Philadelphia

The president — who revels in unleashing violence on his fellow human beings, whether in Minneapolis, Tehran, or the U.S. Capitol — also loves a good heist. After trying to extract $10 billion from us, the American taxpayers, Donald Trump and his subordinates in the U.S. Department of Justice collaborated on a supposed “settlement” of his frivolous lawsuit against his own government. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, who apparently thinks he’s still Trump’s personal lawyer, announced that $1.8 billion of our tax dollars will be available to give to Trump’s political allies — including, apparently, those who viciously attacked and injured Capitol Police officers on Jan. 6, 2021.

A day later, Blanche added an even more outrageous addendum to this “settlement with myself,” as Trump revealingly calls it: a one-page document stating that the government would be “forever BARRED and PRECLUDED” from continuing pending IRS audits of or tax claims against Trump, his family members, or his businesses. Our Republican-dominated Congress refuses to restrain the president’s transparent corruption and abuses of power. We have a chance to rectify this in November by campaigning and voting for candidates who’ll hold the executive branch accountable — and voting out those who won’t.

Shobhana Kanal, Bala Cynwyd

We continue reading about the effects of human-caused climate change, yet our actions to address it are falling short, and some of us continue ignoring climate scientists. As we humans sought to dominate nature, we destroyed the basis for life for countless other species — plant and animal. We have gone so far in our effort to treat Earth as nothing but a resource that we threaten our own existence. In 1624, John Donne wrote, “No man is an island, entire of itself: every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.” What Donne may not have considered is that “the main” includes all life, not just humans. We do not exist apart from nature. We could not have risen to our current level of consciousness without all the other life we grew up with and depended upon. We must respect the needs of plants and animals, or our own species will not survive what we have done and are doing to Mother Nature.

John Hamilton, South Bend, Ind.

Cassandra St. Vil, CEO of Philadelphia Charters for Excellence, wrote a letter to the editor to undercut the fact that a public school system with charter schools does, in fact, remove students and funding from the existing public school system. She cites an unrelated study of racial discrimination while asserting the Philadelphia School District should not be the judge of “whether public charter schools — who are treated as direct competitors for enrollment and funding — should continue to exist.”

That is exactly what charter schools are and why they exist. They are competitors and are supposed to bring innovation and excellence. They frequently do not. They always take students one by one out of public school classrooms across the city. This slow deflation, as parents seek excellence, often unfulfilled, eventually leads exactly here: to an enrollment drop in public schools that requires much-lamented school closures because there is no longer the headcount to keep public schools open. The fight to save all city public schools was over when public charter schools were allowed in to supposedly bring excellence.

Ann Burruss, Newark, Del

For 11 years, I have served as a volunteer tax preparer for low-income individuals and families. I have prepared many simple tax returns for wage-earners and seniors, in which the taxpayer was very stressed and worked diligently to provide all of the necessary forms. The taxpayers’ stress and hard work were completely unnecessary. The IRS already has all of their information — their 1099s, W2s, etc. According to the National Taxpayers Union, the estimated annual out-of-pocket taxpayer expenses (fees to tax preparers, tax software, etc.) amount to $148 billion, and almost seven billion hours are spent doing taxes. This is a tremendous waste of time and money.

The solution? Let the IRS do the tax preparation for most taxpayers, 90% of whom use the standard deduction. The IRS would provide an option for taxpayers to prepare and file their return if they choose. This would be necessary for some taxpayers (e.g., the self-employed). Also, taxpayers could supplement their returns with additional deductions and credits like charitable contributions, tuition, etc., with a one-page form. Imagine a world where filing a tax return is optional. This would substantially reduce taxpayer stress and save taxpayers a substantial amount of money.

John Clark, Philadelphia

Join the conversation: Send letters to letters@inquirer.com. Limit length to 150 words and include home address and day and evening phone number. Letters run in The Inquirer six days a week on the editorial pages and online.

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