Are you better off today?
1. Are you feeling more confident and secure about your financial situation than you did a year ago?
2. Do you feel more relaxed, centered and hopeful this year?
3. Are you spending more today than last year on insurance, utilities, healthcare and food?
4. Do you have health insurance?
5. Are you confident in your job?
6. Will unemployment keep rising as consumer spending decreases?
7. Is your business or workplace worried about trade war tariffs and America’s unsustainable $37 trillion national debt?
8. Can you plan your future and budget without worrying about sudden government disruptions and unexpected economic shocks?
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9. Are you worried about getting less support today from government agencies when you need help?
10. Are you optimistic about buying a house or car?
11. Does inflation or stagflation concern you?
12. Do you fear a recession?
13. Is anger balling up like a fist inside you, and your jaw clenched? You’re normal.
Jerry Wilkerson
SaddleBrooke
Ciscomani tolerating epic incompetence
Juan, I just learned that I need a prescription to receive the updated COVID vaccine. I qualify for the vaccine, but now I have to get permission to be protected against a virus that was killing over 3,000 people a day at the height of the pandemic? Are you kidding me?
Americans are now put directly at physical risk because of epic incompetence on the part of Trump and his wholly ill-equipped coterie of imbeciles who profess they know what they’re doing.
You are my representative. That means, ultimately, that you are responsible for my safety and well-being. So far, this entire clown show is a failure of epic proportions. By your inaction, and failure to stand up against this nonsense, you are just as culpable as the rest of these fools who are putting Americans at risk.
What are you going to do about it?
Paul Emmert
Marana
Continuing to underfund education
About three weeks ago, the Maricopa County Superior Court found ĂŰÁÄÖ±˛Ą guilty of underfunding our public schools by billions of dollars. And I am still mad. I’m a mother of a high school student and two college students; I’m also a high school English teacher. Long before I had these roles, I believed in good public education. People wonder why ĂŰÁÄÖ±˛Ą ranks so low. It’s the funding. We spend less than almost every state. How can teachers educate with broken AC units, broken desks, and broken computers? How can students learn when their air is polluted, their drinking fountains are broken, and their resources are subpar? Because of the greed of state legislators, it is up to the towns and cities to make up for this lack of foresight. We’ll do it because we believe our children, our community, deserve better. Hopefully, the Supreme Court upholds this ruling.
Jeanette Rupel
East side
Facilitating damage to democracy
Dear Mr. Ciscomani,
The world is falling apart, China-Russia-North Korea are ascending, while the United States, once a great nation, is becoming a laughingstock.
Stop supporting useless, time-wasting and expensive distractions in the House of Representatives, like re-investigating the January 6 insurrection. What is there left to investigate? Perhaps President Trump’s failure to send the National Guard to help the Capitol Police? But now he’s spending tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars trying to make the District a police state and sending National Guard to do the work of D.C. police, at the same time pulling out the money the District needs to do the job themselves.
Where are you, Elected Congressman? Do you know how to think independently? Can you be a leader, leading the charge back to sanity? This president is deranged, and you are facilitating his destruction of America. Shame on you!
E. Kathy Suagee
Benson
Council member’s own performance review
A chief task of a city council member is to see that constituent inquiries are answered. Prior to Lane Santa Cruz, that responsibility was handled efficiently in Ward 1.
Not so today. In fact, when I have a concern, I have occasionally contacted a council member outside my ward. Or have just thrown my hands up in the air.
I received the “CITY MANAGER IS UP FOR REVIEW!” email from Lane Santa Cruz. The city manager bears responsibility for many aspects of city government. But so does the City Council. The council should offer guidance to the manager. Could Lane Santa Cruz not know that non-disclosure agreements were being signed?
The city manager’s performance is a personnel matter. I would not pretend to have the ability to offer a valid review. Ward 1 should reflect on its own performance. No reply was received when we wrote to Lane Santa Cruz for her position on Project Blue.
Debbie Collazo
West side
A rose by any other name
Realizing that his “Big Beautiful Bill” could result in losses for Republicans in the next election cycle, President Trump is summoning Republican lawmakers to a meeting about the midterm elections, adding “Attendance will be tracked by the Trump team.” The meeting focus will be to morph Trump’s titling of the B3 bill to the “Working Families Tax Cuts Act.” Recent polling reports 50% of voters believe the bill will help the wealthy while sixty percent believe the bill will harm lower-income families, as well as cause losses in health care coverage. Much like Trump’s attempts to rebrand the Jan. 6, 2021, mob insurrection into a patriotic act, voters need to see through this current renaming as one of Trump’s many distractive tactics and vote for candidates in the midterm elections who will legislate in favor of the American people, not an aspiring dictator. This bill is no rose.
Roger Shanley
East side
Crime dilemma
First, I want to say that crime is certainly a problem in this country, especially its largest cities, where the divide between the haves and have-nots is all too real. However, this situation has regrettably existed forever and will not change with the questionable use of the National Guard, which isn’t trained in crime prevention or solving social problems. Presidents Truman and Reagan had attempts on their lives in D.C., but neither declared martial law and brought in the National Guard as a result. The mayors in these large cities in both red and blue states do their damn best to somewhat control the situation within their allotted funding (state and federal). It is incredible Mr. Johnson that you claim Trump-hating Democrats care less about crime when you support a convicted criminal who precipitated the Jan. 6 insurrection, pardoned the participants and now allowed a horrible sex criminal to be moved to a country-club facility. You still refuse to answer, “How can you support him?”
Chuck Cabrera
Oro Valley
Re: LTE Rome to Rambo
A great LTE from Mr. Bakke. I am glad he pointed out ICE is getting paid so much to chase a sandwich thrower. Getting paid $70,000 plus bonuses, not to mention a huge cost to prosecute this dangerous suspect. All this money is paid by “us,” the taxpayers.
Another example, ICE agents chasing down a weed-cutter suspect, Narciso Barranco whose alleged crime was a misdemeanor committed approx. 30 years ago. His three sons are US Marines. We owe them.
Trump’s policies are costing taxpayers huge amounts. His immigration policies are a failure, the immigrants are not taking our jobs and most are helping keep food prices down by working in the fields and factories. As for petty punitive bullying against Americans who don’t agree, he has no clue of “the rule of law.” And the tariffs, OMG. Follow the laws and wake up and resist.
Dan Bannon
Midtown
War with Venezuela?
Most American citizens don’t get that Trump’s bombing of a Venezuelan drug boat was an act of war. Venezuela gets it, and they escalated things by sending jets to buzz U.S. Navy ships.
The right thing to do would have been to capture the boat, verify drugs were on board, and then take legal action, not provocative military action.
This is how President Lyndon Johnson hyped up the Vietnam War. He committed an act of war by sending a warship into North Vietnamese waters. The North Vietnamese took a few shots at the boat, leaving it undamaged. Johnson then went crying big crocodile tears to Congress saying, “They fired on us first, so we have to go to war with them.”
This is a sleazeball maneuver by Trump. Will Americans ever learn or care that it is America that typically starts our foreign wars? Probably not.
Kimball Shinkoskey
Woods Cross, Utah
Loyalists
There are individuals who find nothing questionable with Trump. They will counterpoint against anyone’s opinion — and write LTEs almost daily. Please limit the number of LTEs one individual may write. Trump loyalists — admittedly, there are 40% of them, see no harm in illegal policies — penned on the whim of a dictator.
DT has taken over the government by writing “laws” — 200 self-serving executive orders — bypassing Congress, and without any oversight. He is attacking our nation from within the White House. Trump has attempted to undermine our system of checks and balances that ensures that each of the three branches of government are co-equal — and that the president is not above the law.
Peter Bisschop
East side
Progress already made
The recent column urging the ĂŰÁÄÖ±˛Ą Corporation Commission to keep an outdated renewable energy mandate is out of step with what’s happening in our state. The REST goals, once considered ambitious, have been eclipsed by the rapid build-out of solar, wind, and battery storage resources.
This progress isn’t driven by government edict, but by economics and a shared desire for cleaner energy. TEP and other utilities are finding cost-effective ways to expand renewables while ensuring they can meet demand around the clock. I appreciate that they are investing in natural gas facilities. Reliability, cost stability and affordability are most critical.
Arbitrary benchmarks, such as requiring 50% solar by 2035, will tie up utilities in ways that could seriously hurt customers. Utilities must have the flexibility to adapt their resource mix to meet needs without jeopardizing affordability or reliability.
Repealing the Renewable Energy Standard isn’t a step backward. It’s an acknowledgment that the market and technology have outpaced a policy written for a different time.
Steve Loper
Northeast side
