President Joe Biden speaks about student loan debt forgiveness at the White House in Washington, D.C., Aug. 24 while Education Secretary Miguel Cardona listens at right. (Evan Vucci / AP)
Speak Out is a reader-generated column of opinions. If you there’s something you’d like to comment on, send an email to ks*******@tr*****.com. Please include “speak out” in the subject line.
Buying votes: Well, it looks like Joe Biden and the Democrats and the liberals are using more tax money, my tax money, to pay for student debt. That’s just another way of saying look, I’ll pay your debt as long as you vote for me because I need to keep my job and I’ll spend all the taxpayers money to do it.
Thanks for nothing: After watching the news coverage on all these horrible floods and devastating weather events, I just want to personally thank all Republicans for blocking anything to do with a climate change. I hope you can’t sleep at night.
Guns vs. lives: Countless people have lost their lives to gun violence but the main concern for some is the Democrats will take your guns away! What a thoughtless, selfish, thing to worry about when innocent lives are lost and their loved ones are left to grieve for an eternity.
Italian discrimination: The Italian community should be marching on city hall. If removing the statues of Columbus isn’t an act of discrimination, I don’t know what is. I wonder if there were any Italian Americans on the panel that decided not to replace the statues. I guess the next step is to cancel the Columbus Day parade.
Downward spiral: Even if inflation ended immediately, many of today’s prices for necessities are unlikely to come down significantly. Combine that with big company layoffs, a housing market slowdown, record personal debt and consumers cutting back on unnecessary spending. The White House can call it whatever they want, but semantics will not change what is already an economic downturn, which is more than likely to get worse before it gets better.
We need a break: ComEd gets caught with their hand in the cookie jar and they’re going to give us all a measly $5, and then we’re still going to keep paying for it. Not only that, why are we paying delivery charges? How else do they think we’re supposed to get our electric? Same thing with my gas bill. When is enough? Nobody looks out for the people who really work hard to pay their bills.
America’s dilemma: Helping those in need is more of an American tradition than helping those of wealth or those of political influence with their superficial needs. Much of the middle class and definitely the lower class have urgent needs that need to be addressed. Theirs are not like the irresponsible, make-believe needs that are often justified because of the size of political donations. The current topics of birth control, gun control and voter suppression must also be considered to understand America’s dilemma. Voters have a responsibility to vote in November for those who would best represent their views.
Losing democracy: While I agree with Lindsey Graham that there should be genuine concern over the potential loss of our democracy in the near future, it has nothing to do with riots in the streets over any Donald Trump indictment. Rather, it’s the repeated attempts by loudmouth politicians like Graham to undermine the legitimate efforts of the Justice Department to keep our nation safe.
Not convicted yet: Readers of Speak Out who seem to think they’re Trump’s judge and jury should know that he must be found guilty of wrong doing before you convict him. That is the order of things in America: innocent until found guilty, even if you object! So retract your claws, chill out and wait for all the evidence. He has never been convicted in the past and this is probably another partisan witch hunt and he’ll be free to run for president again!
All things must end: There is no such thing as eternity. Eternity is the same as infinity. And infinity has no beginning and no end. Anything created, whether it be by a divorce or nature, has a shelf life and will end at some point.
Remembering Tammy: In 1992, 30 years ago, Tammy Zywicki was driving to Grinnell College in Iowa when she went missing. They found her dead body in Missouri and they found her car abandoned on I-80 near Utica. The killer is still at large; now only God knows who did this, where to find the evidence to prosecute and what the motive was. And he’s not telling anyone. Shame on him.
Copyright © 2022, Chicago Tribune
Copyright © 2022, Chicago Tribune
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