Letters to the Editor
Insulting the unemployed The column "How tough is a job search? Let him count the ways" by Monica Yant Kinney on Sunday served as a collective smack in the face to the countless unemployed who struggle to make ends meet.
Insulting
the unemployed
The column "How tough is a job search? Let him count the ways" by Monica Yant Kinney on Sunday served as a collective smack in the face to the countless unemployed who struggle to make ends meet.
Treated right, the topic could have proven helpful to those who have lost modest-income jobs and seek advice on how to land something - anything - that will put food on the table or keep foreclosure at bay.
Instead, the reporter chose to profile a former investments adviser who previously took a buyout of 75 weeks pay from an executive-level position, is married to a doctor, and sends his children to expensive private schools. If the former executive doesn't have the financial resources to weather his current state of unemployment, then one can only deduce that he squandered the buyout and any savings he should have accumulated while employed in well-paying positions.
If that's the case, it's certainly a sad lesson for him and his family to learn. But holding him up as an example of the harshness of the current economy is shameful. Instead of demonstrating empathy for the middle-class unemployed, the article borders on mocking them.
Ginny Somers
Limerick
How to help
Social Security
Recent reports have placed Social Security on the brink of financial collapse. Because of the recession, Social Security will go broke much sooner than previously reported. For 2009, the wage cap has been raised to $106,800, which is an increase of $4,800 over last year's maximum. Social Security pays out more dollars than it collects from wage earners.
Wouldn't it be common sense to drop the current wage limit of $106,800 and tax the total earnings of everyone? This would be the fairest and quickest way of putting more dollars into the Social Security system. This money problem wouldn't have existed if there had not been a cap on earnings for Social Security from Day One. This may not solve the problem in its entirety, but it would be a great starting point.
How about if the politicos in Washington used a little common sense, for a change? It surely would be a breath of fresh air.
David M. Levin
Vineland
Sotomayor's
nomination
I think John Kass' commentary yesterday is one of the best I have read about Sonia Sotomayor's nomination ("And if a white man had said it?").
If a white man had made the remarks that Sotomayor made, he surely would be called a racist. Talk about reverse discrimination.
Lorraine Coalson
Manahawkin
Can't handle
the truth?
The problem with Sonia Sotomayor's comment about a wise Latina woman and a white male is that she spoke the truth. The American public is not used to this concept.
Helen L. Gelhard
Devon
Free to believe,
free to marry
How does the marriage of two people of the same sex infringe on the religious freedoms of those who oppose such marriages?
No one is forcing those who are religious to marry someone of the same sex. Yet, somehow it is acceptable for those who oppose gay marriages to impose their religious views on those who don't share them. By banning such marriages on religious grounds, aren't they saying that their religious freedoms trump the individual freedoms of those who don't share such views?
I thought the First Amendment of the Constitution put the rights of both sides on equal ground. In other words, those who are religious are free to believe them, but they do not have the right to impose such beliefs on others.
The First Amendment gives you the right to believe in Christianity, Judaism, etc.; it does not give you the right to force your beliefs on others as a matter of law.
Eddie Thompson
Downingtown
James.E.Thompson
@questdiagnostics.com