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OPINIONS
Voice of the people
Team gets security; don't social workers?
Your newspaper on Sept. 20, page 8A, had a headline: "Social workers need protection on the job." It made me sad to be reminded of the senseless, brutal murder recently of a local social worker.
The author suggests that even hiring part-time security guards to accompany social workers on home visits would be helpful. She then adds, "Those in policy-making, law-changing positions have closed their eyes to the dangers social agencies face." How many murders will it take to open those eyes?
I turn to page 9A and read a story about Sgt. Tony Bolland, and I directly quote: "... provides security for the football team as a member of the West Virginia State Police." Further descriptions of Sgt. Bolland's role in providing security include that he "arrives on campus and cuts up with members of the Thundering Herd; provides a police escort to Tri-State Airport; helps Marshall's equipment truck pass through an out-of-state weigh station; attends practices and visits team meetings; attends the pre-game meal and makes sure everyone boards the bus."
I hope someone can help me understand that a football team needs security protection even though no football player has ever been murdered as he played and no coach has ever been murdered while he coached a game. Yet we have a slain social worker who would be alive had a member of the West Virginia State Police provided security.
B. M. Jones
Huntington
Keep better track of DUI offenders
My concern is habitual DUI offenders. A $20 Internet search revealed one driver's sixth DUI conviction. For years, I have said this person will kill someone, and her last victim was hit head-on, but survived. All this person's DUIs have been in different states, although she is now living back in Huntington.
What would help, I feel, is multiple DUI offenders having to register like sex offenders so that the public would be aware and could search where these people live to keep their children away from those streets.
David Wylie
Pawleys Island, S.C.
Stinnett wrong about Obama tax plan
A recent guest column by Mr. Ashley Stinnett made many astonishingly inaccurate statements. A book could be written about the racial slurs and the health care issues alone. But, I would like to clear up one misrepresentation: that Sen. Barack Obama plans to triple taxes in all income divisions. That is not true. He plans to lower taxes for 95 percent of working families.
If your family makes under $19,000, Obama offers a credit of $567; McCain's credit is $19. For a family making $19,000 to $38,000, Obama's credit is $892; McCain's is $113. Family income of $38,000 to $66,000: Obama's credit is $1,043; McCain's is $319. This trend continues until an income over $2.9 million gets a tax increase of $701,885 from Obama, while McCain gives these wealthy Americans a tax credit of $269,364.
Under Obama's plan, no taxes are increased on incomes up to $227,000. McCain obviously intends to continue the Bush policy of giving most of the tax cuts to corporations and wealthy Americans. It is time to do away with the trickle-down policy; it doesn't work.
If poor and middle class Americans of every race do not have buying power, they cannot purchase goods and services. Our economy must be a cycle, not a one-way street.
Judy Beasley
Ona
