Every taxpayer in the area was insulted by a comment in last Sunday’s Blade (“Vouchers’ growth worries educators”) by a local school superintendent. She called the loss of school funding because of the EdChoice program “highway robbery.”
Here is what robbery really is: taking money from every homeowner to pay for schools they may not use or like. It’s robbery enough to be forced to give our hard-earned money to a school we don’t use but even worse when the school is not performing well or keeping our children safe.
EdChoice allows the parents to choose where they want their school taxes to go, where they believe their child will get the best education. They get to decide what they think is the best choice, not be forced to accept what officials or politicians think is the best choice.
Competition for these dollars prompted Toledo Public Schools to innovate and establish alternative schools. Maybe the systems now included in EdChoice should do the same. True educators would not worry about the vouchers’ growth. True educators would celebrate many choices to educate children.
CAROLINE DORAN
South Toledo
Limit corporate political cash
Some anniversaries are reason to celebrate, while others offer reason to pause and consider whether to celebrate. The latter is true for the 2010 Supreme Court decision Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission, which marks its 10th anniversary on Tuesday.
The decision stated that corporations and businesses have First Amendment rights to free speech equal to that of persons.
The decision equated free speech with money.
Prior to 2010, campaign donations were regulated by amount and frequency that prevented a pay-to-play system frequently seen in third world countries.
Our elections and our governance have been compromised. Legislators are more responsive to corporate greed than to their constituents.
Dark money prompts foreign interference in our elections. Corporate money influences policy decisions related to immigration, climate change, health care, prescription drugs, opioid availability, and more.
To address this, the nonpartisan American Promise organization backs a constitutional amendment that has been co-sponsored by more than 185 members of the 116th Congress from both parties.
Please join our grassroots effort to get money out of politics. For information, email pcohamendment28@gmail.com or visit americanpromise.net.
NANCY GURNEY
Lakeside, Ohio
Dems were uncivil
President Trump’s rally on Jan. 9 in Toledo gave the area a lot to be proud of.
The city was clean and safe. The police force and the facilities handled the crowds very well. It was truly impressive on national television.
The Trump supporters were orderly and well behaved and they filled the arena to the rafters and spilled over to fill the streets.
There was just one incredible downside that reflected on our entire area.
Before the rally, a group of Democratic politicians, including councilmen, county commissioners, and one U.S. Representative held a news conference.
They insinuated that President Trump and his supporters would be rude and uncivil. They said they wanted “no violence” and “no hate.”
At the end of the hugely successful event, a family member of the very commissioner who accused the President of being hateful was arrested while protesting and charged with disorderly conduct after she “engaged in a physical fight with another person in a parking lot.”
It spoke volumes about who the uncivil people are.
At the end of the night, the one huge embarrassment for the city of Toledo came, not from tens of thousands of Trump supporters, but from the same people who always embarrass the city: its own Democrat leadership.
JOHN F. WEBER
Swanton
First Published January 17, 2020, 5:00 a.m.
