Letters to the Editor | Nov. 6, 2025

The muckraking journalist Lincoln Steffens often used biblical references to Dives (an unbelievably rich man) and Lazarus (a suffering poor beggar) to describe the chasm that existed during the Gilded Age (1870-1900) between the rich captains of industry and the overwhelming number of impoverished Americans who were often recent immigrants. Trump’s Great Gatsby-style Halloween bash with its gilded decorations and fancy feathers — all amid a crisis for recipients of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program — is a reminder of the president’s callous disregard of the true American dream. Surely our destiny demands that we enter a new Progressive Era and right these egregious wrongs.

Terrance Furin, Philadelphia

Today marks another day since the June 30 deadline for the state budget. Today marks another day in which school districts may be forced to cut services — and perhaps stop instruction entirely — because of the stalemate in the General Assembly. Today marks another day in which Pennsylvania’s families are forced to pinch their pennies so they might be able to purchase some food while lawmakers in Harrisburg nurse decades-old grudges and try to pit the commonwealth’s big cities against its small towns. Today marks another day in which legislators failed to complete one of the most basic tasks voters elected them to do. I hope today marks the last day Pennsylvania does not have a budget.

Koert Wehberg, Philadelphia

I grew up in Chester, a small city along the Delaware River in the shadow of Philadelphia and Wilmington. For generations, residents here have lived with the consequences of environmental injustice — industries polluting our air, land, and water while communities bear the health costs.

Within just 20 square miles of southeastern Delaware County, there are at least 11 major polluting facilities, including waste incinerators and petrochemical plants. Add truck traffic, pipelines, and fuel storage tanks, and it becomes clear that Chester and its neighboring towns have been treated as the region’s dumping ground.

Black, brown, and low-income communities are often told these industries bring jobs and growth, but what they deliver instead are higher rates of asthma, cancer, and chronic illness. The People’s Cancer Incidence Screening Tool (pcist.net) confirms what residents have long known: Our cancer rates exceed state and national averages.

Organizations like Chester Residents Concerned for Quality Living and Marcus Hook Area Neighbors for Public Health have led the call for accountability. They remind us that Pennsylvanians have a constitutional right to clean air and pure water — rights that should not depend on one’s zip code.

It’s time for state lawmakers to pass House Bill 109, requiring cumulative impact reviews before new industrial permits are approved. Communities like Chester deserve clean air, safe water, and a healthy future.

Thom Nixon, Chester

In our divided country, neither liberals nor conservatives alone will be able to move our country forward. The side that is in power will provoke hard-line resistance from the other. Our hope lies with those from both sides who put country before party and are willing to work with the other side. Together, they have the ability to find common ground and synthesize the best of the left and the right.

In a diverse nation, compromise is not weakness; it is a reflection of wisdom and patriotism. Congress was created by the Founding Fathers as the place where differences could be worked out for the common good, not as a battleground for political warfare. Factions that refuse to compromise as a supposed matter of principle weaken our system of government and betray the aspirations of our founders.

Give us a Congress with the heart of a liberal and the practicality of a conservative, filled with members like Sen. John McCain who put country before party and who take pride in collaborating with members of the other party. Then we would make enormous strides in solving our problems.

Donald Kelly, Havertown

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