Letters: PGW puts the heat on us

MOST AMERICANS are up in arms about the many "bailouts" we see being done, or proposed, for mega-billion dollar industries and corporations Some see them as necessary, but all hate the idea of having their tax money be the source from which the supposed rescue will come.

Well Philadelphians, with winter upon us, it is again time for hard-working and responsible folks to be subjected to unwillingly participate in a bailout that we've been funding for this whole decade - PGW.

Thanks to horrendous management, corruption and customers who never pay, we are constantly on the hook. No one has sympathy for the lenders who gave out loans to unqualified borrowers, and few have sympathy for the fools who borrowed far beyond their means. Yet here we are, once again, forced to hand out thousands more dollars a year than we should to a group that just cannot get itself squared away.

We received conflicting stories as to why we have to pay three times more than we should for heat from the thieves/buffoons who run PGW. Back in the beginning of this decade we started to see our rates dramatically increase. Can you recall the reasoning, back then? We had a series of mild winters and PGW claimed the lack of demand forced them to raise the rates.

Then, we finally had what resembled a true winter in 2003. After that, what did PGW claim was going to force them to once again raise rates? That's right, too much demand for their service.

Please, Goldilocks, tell us which kind of winter would be "just right" for us to pay what we should.

The massive spike in prices for gasoline to fill our vehicles did a lot of damage to this country's economy these past few years. But the steady and unjustified rise in what it costs to heat our homes throughout Philadelphia is the true destroyer of our quality of life and future financial security.

Andrew R. McCloskey

Philadelphia