Letters to the Editor | Aug. 15, 2023

Once again, our leaders make grand announcements about increasing wages, this time to the prevailing rate on federal projects. These increases will raise the incomes of approximately 25% of our workforce and will apply to all federally funded or public projects. To what purpose? The public construction trades are already some of the best-paying jobs in our country. What they have done is increase the costs of projects that are covered by the so-called Inflation Reduction Act. This means we will now accomplish less with these monies because the costs will be higher than when the act was passed. It also means that taxpayers will get the bill to support what is already a pretty well-compensated industry. It will also affect the rest of us; we now need more money just to stay even. Our government leadership has looked to grab headlines with money instead of governing with rationale and restraint. Perhaps we need to replace them all.

William Young, Cinnaminson, benyoung@gmail.com

I was disappointed to read Jeff Gammage’s op-ed “Why I’m saying goodbye to Bruce Springsteen.” His claim that the Boss doesn’t care about high ticket prices is simply not true, and it betrays a shocking innocence about how concert seats are actually sold. I paid a premium to scalpers for fifth-row floor seats — so close to the band that I could take wonderful photos with only my phone. Even with the markup, I got two tickets for less than half the $5,000 Gammage was complaining about. (We forewent a vacation to pay for them, and it was worth it.)

I tried my utmost to pay mere Ticketmaster prices for our seats. I was online, waiting for the starting split second on both Ticketmaster’s and the Wells Fargo Center’s websites — and their servers were already jammed. By the time I was let in, about 45 minutes later, all the seats I would have wanted were gone —gobbled up by the very same scalpers from whom I was forced to buy our tickets, minutes later, on a well-known reselling site. The sad fact is, if you charge inexpensive prices for tickets, you’re only enriching the scalpers. Personally, I would have far preferred to pay exorbitant prices directly to Springsteen than to the scalpers who routinely ruin things for fans.

So who exactly deserves Gammage’s scorn? Is it the star who’s labored a lifetime for these adoring crowds, or the parasites who use sophisticated software to crowd fans out at the starting bell and then resell all the best seats for mega-profits?

Arthur P. Johnson, Philadelphia

The appointment by Attorney General Merrick Garland of U.S. Attorney David Weiss, who has been overseeing the Hunter Biden investigation, as special counsel to further investigate the president’s son violates the rules and regulations governing requirements for a special counsel — namely, that the special counsel must be someone from outside the U.S. government and that they be impartial and unbiased. Obviously, Weiss’ appointment fails to meet those requirements. Being a U.S. attorney, he is not from outside the government, and the sweetheart plea deal that he had offered to Biden proves he is not impartial and unbiased. These are such blatant violations of the letter and intent of the regulations governing the appointment of a special counsel that one can only conclude that the Joe Biden administration is corrupt from top to bottom.

Fred Hearn, Turnersville

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