Communities are rejecting Act 72 for a reason

The Post-Gazette has failed to report the major reason that most school districts are not opting in to the state's school tax plan: It is a bad deal that will ultimately raise taxes for many constituents.

Act 72 on the surface appears to be OK: gambling money offsets the property tax. It will decrease property taxes using a homestead exemption formula, with average decreases between $150 and $300.

What is not as well advertised is that a high proportion of this decrease comes from an increase in wage taxes, which must go up by at least 0.1 percent. A homeowner making $50,000 per year will thus see a $50 increase in wage taxes, significantly offsetting the decrease in the property tax.

Worse, the property tax decrease is calculated as a homestead exemption, which means the savings is less for some home owners than if the millage rate had been cut.

If the Legislature were truly interested in reducing property taxes, it would have let the savings be applied as cut in millage, without being offset by the wage tax increase.

More districts would have agreed to the package if the state had kept it simple. School districts are not opting in because it is a bad deal for them and their constituents.

STEPHEN PAFF
Aspinwall

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Cartoons harmless

I am writing in response to Mr. Richard Guardiani's May 18 letter titled "Liberal Scare Tactics."

It is ludicrous to think that Rob Rogers' cartoons have anything to do with the downturn in military recruits. Perhaps the American public is waking up to the fact that our entry into the Iraq war was initiated by a pack of lies about non-existent weapons of mass destruction.

Mr. Guardiani needs to stop listening to Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly and others of that ilk and read the Downing Street memo ("Staying What Course?" May 17 Paul Krugman column) and he will feel that he has been duped as well.

I am a liberal Democrat, support our troops, have always supported our troops and I am proud to be American. Frankly, I don't know of any liberal Democrats who feel the way that Mr. Guardiani claims in his letter. I was delighted that free elections were held in Iraq and see it as the beginning of a process that will allow our troops to return home. Mr. Guardiani's letter is just another piece of neo-conservatism that arouses anger and serves to further divide our country.

ERNIE STRICSEK
Harrison City

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Marriage and sex

Stephanie Coontz ("The Great Marriage Paradigm Shift," May 22 Forum) falls into the same trap that Alfred Kinsey did: confusing history with morality. By their calculus, if it happens then it's normal, right and good. They conclude that you can't stop them, so you might as well let them do it. If vows of chastity ever fail, abstinence is in vain. The result is that they take single parenthood, illegitimate birth and extra-marital sex and then accept them, encourage them and ask us to support them with our tax dollars.

Coontz conceded that: "We cannot afford to construct our social policies, our advice to our own children and even our own emotional expectations around the illusion that all commitments, sexual activities and care-giving will take place in a traditional marriage. That [TV] series has been canceled."

She also asserts that "Marriage is no longer the institution where people are initiated into sex.... Forget the fantasy of solving the challenges of modern personal life by re-institutionalizing marriage," while completely ignoring that many of those challenges exist because of the failure of marriage as an institution. She forgets that stigmas against divorce, illegitimacy and promiscuity have an important role in encouraging healthy behavior.

She's simply wrong, and if we do as she says, our society will have even more wrong with it.

DAVID SMITH
Freedom

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Airline woes

The May 11 article about US Airways asking the bankruptcy judge for a $55 million increase to keep existing executives and add additional executives was appalling ("Bonuses Inflame Air Unions").

Until recently I was employed by US Airways in the Greensboro location. US Airways decided to "outsource" Greensboro as well as 25 other non-hub cities. US Airways is interested in the bottom line.

Greensboro employed about 35 baggage handlers and operations personnel, many of whom have worked exclusively at US Airways since graduating from high school. It was their career. US Airways has decided to furlough these dedicated workers after they had already agreed to pay cut after pay cut and kicked them out to the street with little or no pension, due to the continuing mismanagement of the airline.

The other 25 non-hub cities have also been decimated with the outsourcing; some of the employees have taken jobs in the hub cities such as Charlotte, Washington, D.C., or Philadelphia, but the majority have been kicked to the streets.

Most of the outsourcing has already taken place or will be in place in the next couple of months. Yet with this adjusting of the bottom line, management continues to make no sacrifices and then has the gall to ask the bankruptcy courts for more money to pad their pockets and thumb their collective noses at the remaining workers.

DAN McGOVERN
Advance, N.C.

Editor's note: The writer is a Pittsburgh native and formerly worked for US Airways locally.

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Democracy betrayed

While this country spends hundreds of billions of dollars and sacrifices the lives of our brave military personnel trying to force liberty on people that have only known tyrants and barbarism since the time of Christ, we here in Allegheny County have chosen to throw our democracy away like yesterday's garbage.

By voting to approve the elimination of our row officers, the majority has decided that what's best for all of us is not to have a say as to who our representatives in county government will be.

The theoretical argument is that somehow by ridding ourselves of the duty and responsibility of electing those officials we will save money, improve employee efficiency and take politics out of the eventually redesigned departments. Even the Post-Gazette has issued the challenge to "strike while the iron is hot" and discard the elected sheriff and treasurer as well ("Row Harder," May 19 editorial).

I've always believed in respecting the other guy's opinion, particularly on politically charged issues, but in this case I implore anyone to show evidence of how the quality of life has improved for the residents of Allegheny County since we changed from the commission form of government to the county executive brand. After verifying how much better we have it now I'll feel confident in saying we can look forward to more of the same since we won't have to decide who will be in charge.

JOSEPH CLEMENTE
McKeesport

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Unwise addition

If, as your May 27 article ("Excess School Capacity 'a Luxury' ") states, "About half of the city's 86 schools have too few students," I do not understand why Principal David May-Stein wishes to build an expensive addition to Colfax Elementary School in Squirrel Hill, doubling it in size, with the goal of turning it into a new K-8 school?

If half of our schools have too few students, it does not seem to be an optimal time for more new building at taxpayer expense!

DANIEL E. WEEKS
Squirrel Hill

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Taking AP classes cuts college costs

Gary J. Niels, head of Winchester Thurston School, is wrong to include advanced placement classes in his Forum commentary on the "invasion" ("Don't Let College Invade High School," May 1). He overlooks the worst part of the college invasion: even middle-class families cannot afford college education without incurring massive amounts of debt.

Regardless of how "vanilla" or superficial they may make a high school's curriculum, AP classes remain one of the best ways to defray the immense cost of college. The seven AP classes I took over my high school career might save me about $40,000 in college.

Also, AP classes were not a plague on pedagogy, a cause for grade-whorism or a source of senior apathy, as Mr. Niels suggests. Of course, for someone who can afford to attend Winchester Thurston School the cost of college -- and thus AP classes -- won't likely be a concern.

MICHAEL HAIBACH
Forest Hills

Editor's note: The writer is a senior at Central Catholic High School who will graduate today.