Letters: Fattah charges political revenge

THE U.S. ATTORNEY'S Office in Philly recently made itself a laughingstock with its relentless pursuit of the utterly irrelevant Joey Merlino for the outrageous criminal outrage of having a scotch and a cigar with a guy he knew 30 years ago.

The Chaka Fattah indictment is somewhat less amusing, however.

That this is purely a political vendetta cannot be doubted. The velvet glove came off for all to see when Sen. Menendez was indicted - another guy who was "being investigated" for years but then suddenly was indicted when the president's Iran deal was about to be finalized and it became clear Menendez would be the loudest Democratic vote against it. There are Democrats who are concerned about national security, but they now seem rather muted in their criticism over the prospect of a nuclear Iran 10 years from now. I wonder why that happened, don't you?

In the byzantine world of the Obama administration, where politics is everything and the law doesn't seem to matter much, it is difficult to say just what misstep led to Congressman Fattah's comeuppance. Perhaps there were a number of issues that led to the decision he had to be replaced. Maybe his son Chips' arrogance, facing his own DOJ prosecution, had something to do with it. How dare that young man actually represent himself in court and attempt to defend himself! Doesn't he understand that when the DOJ puts you in the crosshairs, you are supposed to cop a plea and shut up?

As for the case against Chaka, we are told it relates primarily to fund-raising for his mayoral run in 2007. Really? So they pursued him and threatened his friends and investigated him year after year and came up with exactly nothing. Now suddenly, 8 1/2 years later, there is a 29-count indictment. Twenty-nine? Well, then he must be evil and corrupt and crooked, right? And hey, let's throw in the thing about his wife selling her 25-year-old car to some family pal. There's something fishy about that, ya know - something really, really fishy. We're just not sure what it is yet.

And of course, it no longer matters what the truth is. In our current system of justice, his guilt or innocence doesn't matter. Even if he fights this case, he will be ruined financially and politically. Most likely, he will battle for his name and his honor, but will be worn down and impoverished by the bottomless resources of the feds, and will ultimately plead guilty to one of the minor counts in the indictment so he can stay out of prison and salvage his pension.

In the DOJ today, the rule of law is only a memory. The process itself is the punishment.

Michael Kubacki

Philadelphia

DN's false dichotomy

Editors from the Daily News ("Better late than awful," Aug. 3) construct a change vs. status quo dichotomy to describe the budget impasse between Gov. Tom Wolf and Republican legislators. Curiously, they assigns the mantle of "change" to Wolf, who vetoed both liquor privatization and pension reform. What is more "status quo" than prohibition-era liquor and a hemorrhaging pension system?

Worse, Wolf has been unwilling to speak honestly about the breadth of his proposed tax increases. He won't discuss his 20 percent income tax hike or his 10 percent sales tax increase. Nor will he mention expanding the sales tax to services like nursing-home care, day care and higher education. Instead, the governor intimates that a tax increase on natural gas drillers will solve the state's fiscal woes.

In truth, the severance tax is roughly 3 percent of Wolf's entire package of tax hikes - the other 97 percent would be borne by working families and small businesses. Plus, new revenue from drillers would not even be earmarked for public schools!

The General Assembly sent Wolf a budget that shields Pennsylvanians from tax increases, invests hundreds of millions more dollars in education and creates a fair education-funding formula. Wolf said no to all of it. The ball is squarely in his court. It's time for the governor to come to the table and compromise - better late than never.

James Paul

Senior policy analyst

Commonwealth Foundation

Harrisburg

Wolf's governing taxing

Regarding John Baer's column inviting ways Gov. Wolf can "bend a little" to reach a budget agreement, ending his demands that sales and income tax increases be part of the budget discussion should top the list.

The vast majority of Wolf's $4.6 billion tax-hike proposal depends on sales and income taxes that would wallop Pennsylvanians of all income levels. In fact, Wolf would make working families pay higher costs for critical things like day care, nursing care, college textbooks and even funeral expenses.

No wonder not one House member, Democrat or Republican, voted for Wolf's plan.

What's more, Wolf would return just 30 cents of every new tax dollar in property tax "relief" - and not until October 2016. This tax shift has no relevance to the current budget, and Gov. Wolf shouldn't delay funding for services Pennsylvanians depend on to get his demands.

Unfortunately, it seems any agreement sans crushing tax hikes falls short of Wolf's liberal standard.

If Gov. Wolf wants a budget that moves Pennsylvania forward, he should loosen his vice grip on sales and income tax hikes and sham property tax relief and save those debates for another day. Of course, if his primary goal is the title of "most liberal governor," then he's doing just fine.

Gina L. Diorio

Commonwealth Foundation