Letters to the Editor

Fear-mongering

The article "Prison guards cool to Corbett's reduction plan" (Monday) shows the Pennsylvania State Corrections Officers Association's fear-mongering campaign against reducing prison populations.

Corrections Secretary John Wetzel plans to reduce the inmate population by more than 2,500 next year by making the corrections system more efficient. The officers' union's claim that this reduction requires releasing violent criminals into the streets lacks any teeth. Wetzel isn't proposing lowering public-safety standards or letting dangerous criminals out, but fixing costly inefficiencies.

For instance, it can take more than 100 days after an inmate is granted parole until he's released. Reducing this time would not only free up prison beds, it would save significant tax dollars - an extra 100 days in prison wastes $9,000.

The real issue isn't public safety. As the prison population declines, so could the number of corrections officers. From the experience in other states, such as California and New York, self-interested officers' unions have stonewalled meaningful reforms that would chip away at their jobs.

While bad policies may have led to the explosion in state prison populations, it may be the unions that pose the biggest challenge in getting the inmate numbers down.

Katrina Currie, policy analyst, Commonwealth Foundation, Harrisburg

Jesus and taxes

It is hard for me to imagine a more perverse treatment of Jesus than that shared by Rick Dunham ("Jesus didn't want higher taxes," Sunday). Jesus' "sell everything" parable tells us that we who have must give to those who are indigent without limitation. If American Christians gave everything to the have-nots, there would be no need for taxation by government to care for the indigent because we would fully care for the indigent out of love. This is the way of Jesus.

However, since American Christians accept deep inequality and poverty in order to preserve income and wealth, our love and generosity do not reach the billions of dollars needed for medical care, food, and shelter for the indigent. Government medical care saves far more lives than feel-good charity networks. So we care through government, at least to some degree.

That Dunham would both discourage taxation to care for the indigent, and recommend a tax break so that Christians could protect their income and offer limited care for the needy through the hodgepodge of charities, is a sin.

Art Haywood, Philadelphia

A moral people

Karen Heller mocks Pennsylvania for passing a resolution calling for studying the Bible to understand how Scripture helped form our state and our nation ("N.J. stays in today, as Pa. slips back in time," Wednesday). Rather than use my words as a rebuttal, here is a quote from Philadelphia Archbishop Charles Chaput:

"America depends as a nation on a moral people shaped by their religious faith, and in a particular way, by the Christian faith. Without that living faith, animating its people and informing its public life, America becomes something alien and hostile to the very ideals it was founded on. What we're watching emerge in this country is a new kind of paganism, an atheism with air-conditioning and digital TV. And it is neither tolerant nor morally neutral."

Tom Phillips, Collegeville, tphillips56@yahoo.com

Marriage equality

The Tony Auth cartoon showing New Jersey Gov. Christie standing on a beach saying, "Let there be darkness," with the rising of the sun representing a new day of "marriage equality," makes a mockery of the Genesis quote, "Let there be light." Too bad Auth didn't read the rest of the Genesis account, where God created marriage and set the male and female in it.

James Baker, Philadelphia

City tragedy

I thought the comical responses Jeanne Andrews received regarding the construction disaster afflicting Allens Lane and McCallum Streets might make a fantastic comedy for our theater ("Pleas over Philly roadwork hit a dead end," Sunday). But if we put it on, nobody would be able to see it because they can't find us or get to us because of the construction.

I understand that large projects like this need to be done and that disruption of services is to be expected. What I don't understand is the lack of basic communication that all parties involved failed to implement. There was no advance warning, no detour signage, less than a 24-hour notice of water being shut off, and no overall traffic study to assess the impact of this project. This has all been extremely toxic to our small nonprofit community arts center. In a recession, we fight tooth and nail for every dollar, and this project most certainly put additional strain on us. It has forced us to cancel classes, issue refunds, and take income losses of at least $1,000 or more in program revenue - all things that could have been avoided with proper notification.

The number of people who talk to me about this project grows exponentially by the day, and each person puts the blame squarely on the city. Living with crumbling infrastructure is part of life in Philadelphia, but if this is any indication of how we as a city are going to move forward to repair and replace our basic utilities, I fear that all other projects will be handled like this one. Instead of being a potential model for how we all need to work together to repair our country, what we have is a model of how to fail.

Craig Stover, executive director, Allens Lane Art Center, craig@allenslane.org