Letters:

Be careful what you wish for in turning trash pickup into a revenue-generating activity.

I suspect more than a few residents will turn to dumping their trash in Dumpsters, empty lots, or abandoned houses to avoid paying. Enforcing against this illegal dumping is unrealistic and, even if effective, could cost more than the revenue generated in the first place.

Cleaning up the city should be an urgent priority. Philadelphia remains a beautiful but filthy city. Is there anyone who thinks this problem won't be exacerbated by imposing a fee on trash pickup?

John Jones

Solebury Township

I, for one, will be more than happy to pay for trash pickup. I've been living in this city about 50 years, and I never knew that I was having my trash picked up free of charge. I thought my taxes were paying for it. But if that were true, then it would mean that under the new plan, I'd be taxed twice for the same service. And, of course, that couldn't be.

For that reason, I'd like to thank all of the people involved in the voluntary pickup of my trash. And I'm sorry I ever had bad thoughts about you guys.

Now I understand why the collection trucks routinely and unnecessarily block the streets by driving down the middle of a two-way street. And why so many cans are just flat out missed. And why the empty cans are thrown haphazardly after being emptied (though some of them do actually make it back to the curb).

When we are finally made to pay for trash collection, volunteers will no longer be used. We'll have professional and caring workers collect our trash.

And I'm for that.

Vince Dowdle

Philadelphia
vdowdle@comcast.net

One of the main conflicts emerging at the White House health-care summit is the fear by insurance companies that the president will offer a government health-care plan as an alternative to private insurance. They worry that a less-expensive nonprofit alternative will eventually woo the public away from private plans.

What's the problem here? If a government-offered plan delivers satisfactory care at a lesser cost, why shouldn't private health insurance go the way of the dinosaur?

Joshua Markel

Philadelphia

A letter-writer Wednesday ("Whose taxes to cut?") has a fundamental misunderstanding of what taxation is. Income belongs to those who've earned it. The government doesn't give tax cuts to people; it simply takes away less of their earnings.

The left wing's conception of income and taxation often seems more like the actions of the schoolyard bully who steals $4.50 of your lunch money while leaving 50 cents in your pocket, and then asks for your thanks because you can still buy milk.

Richard Rando

Moorestown

Bernard Madoff and his wife say they are entitled to keep a $7 million Manhattan apartment and an additional $62 million in assets. Well, the people he bilked out of billions are entitled to be reimbursed.

Madoff claims the apartment and the $62 million are unrelated to a $50 billion fraud. How does Madoff think he got the apartment and the $62 million? Can you say "Ponzi scheme"?

Madoff and his wife need to be stripped of all assets, just as he stripped his clients of everything they had.

Vicky Benedict Farber

Narberth

Public-education champion Gov. Rendell may be "committed to libraries," but not in any positive sense.

Pennsylvania public libraries now rank 38th nationally in per-capita funding, a decrease from the 36th- percentile ranking that horrified Philadelphians and the nation when The Inquirer wrote about it in 1998. The "fiscal reality" is that Pennsylvania libraries continue to trend downward, experiencing cut after cut. Will Pennsylvania's governor count himself as an advocate when Pennsylvania is at rock bottom?

It is tragic how Pennsylvania's elected officials continue to starve this most important legacy of Benjamin Franklin, this most democratic American institution of them all, our much-needed, much-utilized public libraries.

Anne Minicozzi

Trustee, Radnor Memorial Library