Keeping fat cat GOP donors happy

President Trump and the Republicans in the U.S. House have finally accomplished a eight-year long goal of repealing Obamacare.

Of course, they didn’t bother to delay their vote long enough for the nonpartisan CBO to “score” the legislation because they didn’t want to acknowledge how many millions of people will lose coverage and how much more their plan will cost after removing the 3½ percent tax the wealthy used paid into Obamacare.

So, Trump and Paul Ryan took a victory lap for passing legislation that defunds planned parenthood, frequently the only source of medical care for poor women in rural areas, allows states to seek a waiver to throw people with pre-existing conditions into a “high risk pool” that’s underfunded, I wonder what those premiums will be, cover millions fewer people and rewards the wealthy with a giant tax break. Once again, money for the rich is the predominant motivation for Republicans.

Keeping the fat cat GOP donors happy is more important than affordable health care that truly helps the middle-class and poor.

Tom Minnerick

Elgin

Elgin gun store vote doesn’t bode well

The 5 to 4 vote of the Elgin City Council to approve a gun store/shooting range in a residential neighborhood within 100 feet of two schools and Easter Seals is disheartening — for these reasons: who the majority listened to and didn’t listen to, and likely outcomes.

At the council’s last meeting, the majority listened primarily to threats from the Illinois State Rifle Association and gun supporters. Not listened to were lawyers who said the legal situation is not what the NRA says it is, and dozens from the neighborhood — some living a half block away — who object to zoning changes putting their quality of life at risk. Also not listened to: the landlord for Easter Seals and the preschool, who said the gun store might force both to move out.

The council vote did not respect zoning laws requiring 1,000 feet distance from a school; suggestions of better locations; Elgin’s development goals prioritizing health care and education; and understandings of good governance that prioritize resident welfare and existing establishments.

Among likely outcomes: those who deal in guns will eye Elgin as an opportunity for straw sales and weapons trafficking. The disregard for zoning laws shown so far is a red flag. How well will the gun store abide by other laws and guidelines governing gun sales and safety?

More outcomes: loss of value for nearby homes, families moving out of the neighborhood, Easter Seals and the preschool moving out, police having their hands full to monitor a gun store in a dense residential area. God forbid Elgin has an uptick in shootings — but statistics are not reassuring.

Cheryl Brumbaugh-Cayford

Elgin

Teeth-rattling train crossing on President St.

The railroad crossing on President Street, between College Avenue and Crescent Street in QWheaton, has been giving problems for the motorists to cross.

The rail tracks are so elevated and the surface so rough that whenever a car passes through, it rattles badly and the passengers are shaken up. This is a damaging factor for the tires and parts of the engine, and can prove harmful for the passengers who have heart or stomach ailments.

The concerned authorities are requested to look into this matter and do the needful.

Rafiq Ebrahim

Glendale Heights

DuPage now certified in crisis intervention

We commend leaders in DuPage County for making it the first jurisdiction in Illinois outside of Chicago to be certified by the state to offer Crisis Intervention Team training to law enforcement officers.

Within two years, the sheriff’s department will train hundreds of officers, saving lives, protecting police, reducing costs and improving outcomes for people in mental health crisis.

In conversation with dozens of local law enforcement leaders over the last three years, DuPage United identified a dramatic chronic shortage of CIT training in the greater Chicago area, and began to work with the necessary parties. We thank Sheriff John Zuruba, Public Health Executive Director Karen Ayala, State’s Attorney Robert Berlin and NAMI DuPage for their commitment to this effort.

This is a wonderful development. After decades of cuts to mental health services, police are encountering more and more people in crisis. CIT training is a proven strategy for helping police handle mental health crises in ways that are safer for police and better for citizens. By diverting people from unnecessary jail time and reducing officer injuries, this training will save taxpayers money. By interacting with well-trained, knowledgeable officers, people in mental health crisis will be less likely to end up in jail and more likely to get appropriate care.

The state certification has been a long time coming: too long, in our view.

We strongly encourage the Illinois Law Enforcement Training and Standards Board to keep up the needed standards, but work the process much more quickly for other jurisdictions now seeking course approval. The more officers that are trained, the better the outcomes will be as police encounter those in mental health crisis. Lives are on the line.

Naazish YarKhan

J. Michael Solberg

DuPage United

Proof our leaders need political experience

We are seeing, at both the national and state level, what happens when you elect a millionaire with no political experience.

In Illinois, Gov Rauner has prevented a budget from being passed, and the collateral damage has impacted thousands of people who are the neediest among us. He is holding up a state budget now for over two years on these points:

• Term Limits — we have elections every two years. If voters want to make a change, they always have that opportunity. We don’t need a governor to hold the budget hostage over that item.

• Second — Freeze property taxes — Might sound good to some people, but think about it. Why should the state government prevent your city, town or village from meeting its obligations in education, safety and health.

Suppose a medical crisis arose, would you want your municipality to be prevented from treating or caring for the elderly or the ill because they couldn’t raise the money to provide for them? What if your schools became overcrowded? Do you want the state (which has proved itself to be unable to act) to prevent your municipality from adding school facilities?

Gov. Rauner is dead wrong on these two points and we should all contact our state congressional officials to let them know how they should vote.

Bob Hedrich

Buffalo Grove

Today’s leaders need greater faith in God

I often read about politicians and their partisan and petty behavior. When I was 10 years old, our fifth-grade teacher took the class on a field trip. We visited the state Capitol.

The building was grand and quite impressive. My 10-year-old imagination told me that the men and women who occupied that building were just as majestic as the building itself. In 1963, many of those men and women were majestic. The Democrats and Republicans disagreed on issues then just as they do today.

The difference was that these leaders were friends after work. Petty behavior was rare.

In the election of 1960 when Nixon lost to Kennedy, some investigations showed that Kennedy’s people had cheated grandly. Nixon had evidence but refused to put the country through such a nightmare.

Nixon was a flawed human being, but he did the honorable thing for us, the American people. In 1974 under the cloud of Watergate, Nixon resigned from office to spare the American people more torment. Nixon was a Quaker by faith. He put God and country before his own petty self-interest. Can you think of a politician today who would do such?

Politicians were far from perfect in those days. However, they had something politicians today do not have, honor and the fear of God. George Washington, said, “Do not let anyone claim to be a true American if they ever attempt to remove religion from politics.”

Are today’s politicians petty, unpatriotic and without noble hearts because so many of them remove God from their politics and from their lives? Sadly, the poet Henry David Thoreau’s words are applicable to today’s politicians: “They created a lot of grand palaces here, but they forgot to create the noblemen to put in them.”

Charles Danyus

Round Lake Beach

Our representatives have to step up

A large number of people voted for Donald Trump to be president (nearly half of those that bothered to vote). Metaphorically speaking, many voters may have been reaching out for a lifeline, a semblance of renewed hope in an otherwise bleak landscape of diminished opportunity. As it becomes increasingly evident that the new president will not deliver on his promises, a very significant portion of the aforementioned voters will assume that Mr. Trump was not treated fairly — by the Democrats, by his fellow Republicans or by the press and the judiciary.Before we feel the full fury of their anger, this may be an opportunity for our legislators to address the issues that brought us to this development — corruption, inaction, divisiveness, distrust, ineptitude … the list goes on. A capricious individual in the presidency cannot be used as yet another reason nothing meaningful gets done.

Representatives, go to work! Do what you are being paid to do. If you can’t do that, we will find individuals to represent us who can.

Richard L. May

Palatine