Featured Commentary category, Page 58
Peter Morici: Cities should consider these concrete actions to house the homeless
Homeless villages under highway overpasses and tent camps in other public spaces create the appearance of a new epidemic, but historically, homelessness has been endemic to urban America. In the late 19th century, skid rows appeared in New York and other cities, where flop houses sheltered up to 75,000 people...
Brendon Slotterback: Making Forbes through Frick safe for all
In Pittsburgh, 2023 is on track to be the deadliest in recent memory for people walking in our city. In 2022, according to the City’s own data, 25 people died in car crashes within city boundaries. The transportation sector, including the cars and trucks we drive, is now the largest...
Rep. Mike Kelly: Here is the budget Congress is — and is not — actually debating
Picture this: A family of four earns $50,000 a year but spends $69,000 a year. This seems unsustainable, right? That’s because it is. Yet, the federal government does that every day — in the trillions of dollars — all with your money. This year, President Biden presented Congress with a...
Elwood Watson: Why should we care if a politician is unmarried?
It appears some Republican donors are really concerned that presidential candidate Tim Scott, South Carolina’s junior senator, is a 57-year-old bachelor — and whatever implications that may entail. Top party donors are raising concerns about the fact the conservative Black senator has never been married. and want some of their...
Emma Varvaloucas : Gen Z is dropping the college dream. It’s time for America to catch up.
For years, we have lamented the spike in college costs and accompanying student debt bloat while we teach high schoolers to covet admittance to a tiny sliver of prestigious universities — ones that refuse to enlarge incoming class sizes despite endowments the size of some small countries’ gross domestic product....
John A. Fliter and Betsy Wood: States weakening child labor restrictions 8 decades after government took kids out of workforce
A movement to weaken American child labor protections at the state level began in 2022. By June 2023, Arkansas, Iowa, New Jersey and New Hampshire had enacted this kind of legislation, and lawmakers in at least another eight states had introduced similar measures. The laws generally make it easier for...
Kathryn J. Edin, H. Luke Shaefer and Timothy J. Nelson: One overlooked way to fight opioid deaths? Give people something to do.
Across the country, communities are struggling to respond to the opioid crisis, some with broader access to medical strategies and more treatment programs. Yet the national overdose death rate continues to rise, with opioid deaths in 2022 remaining at an all-time high. There are, of course, many causes of addiction,...
Michael Reagan: Politicians’ brains are a nonpartisan issue
Seriously folks. Maybe we Republicans better stop banging on President Biden for the serious cognitive issues he obviously has. Unless we hold the players on our own team responsible for their cognitive issues, we have to stop harping on the obvious mental declines of Biden, Sen. John Fetterman and Diane...
Zach Kennedy: The Pittsburgh Pirates deserve better
A sea of overjoyed fans draped in black and gold as far as the eye could see was on its feet, pushing PNC Park to capacity on a crisp October afternoon. This was the atmosphere I faked a doctor’s appointment to enjoy during my sophomore year of high school in...
Cal Thomas: Getting the Saudi-Israel formula wrong
If one is mixing chemicals, getting the formula wrong can produce disastrous results. It is the same with international diplomacy. For decades the left was wrong about the Soviet Union and China, believing that what the U.S. did or did not do would have a positive influence on communist dictators...
Dietram A. Scheufele, Dominique Brossard and Todd Newman: Experts alone can’t handle AI; the public needs a seat at the table
Are democratic societies ready for a future in which AI algorithmically assigns limited supplies of respirators or hospital beds during pandemics? Or one in which AI fuels an arms race between disinformation creation and detection? Or sways court decisions with amicus briefs written to mimic the rhetorical and argumentative styles...
Stacy Garrity: Working to return $4.5 billion in unclaimed property
As state treasurer, one of my top priorities is returning unclaimed property to its rightful owners. Right now, the Pennsylvania Treasury Department is working to return more than $4.5 billion to hardworking people across the commonwealth. In fact, about one in 10 Pennsylvanians has money waiting. I encourage everyone to...
Bruce Cooper and Mark Reynolds: Congress, we have a problem — and it’s time for you to solve it
When it comes to climate change, sometimes it feels like we can’t see the forest for the trees — the smoldering, wildfire-ravaged trees. Public attention has been consumed this summer by shocking climate impacts. Acrid wildfire smoke has blighted skylines and polluted the air in nearly every region of the...
Greg Fulton: Russia’s insidious genocide in Ukraine
The Oxford Dictionary defines genocide as “the deliberate killing of a large number of people from a particular nation or ethnic group with the aim of destroying that nation or group.” Throughout history, the world has been slow to recognize or respond to genocide, and in some cases unwilling to...
Christopher Decker: Jobs are up, wages less so — and lower purchasing power could still lead the US into a recession
Don’t be overly fooled by recent seemingly rosy jobs data. Yes, the U.S. economy added 187,000 jobs in August 2023 — faster than the revised 157,000 increase for July and above most analysts’ expectations for the month. And yes, gains were seen across most industries, with health care and social...
Barry C. Burden: Paper ballots are good, but accurately hand-counting them all is next to impossible
Among people, mostly Republicans, who remain the most suspicious of the 2020 presidential election results, there’s something of a movement to return to the days when election ballots in the United States were counted by hand. One 67,000-person county in Georgia recently required a hand count of all ballots, for...
Raymond Scheppach: Congress needs to pass 12 funding bills in 11 days to avert a shutdown — here’s why that isn’t likely
U.S. senators and representatives returning from their summer vacations will need to shake off their suntans in quick time and get down to business. Congress has just 11 days when it’s in session before the next federal fiscal year begins on Oct. 1 And in that time, it will need...
Elwood Watson: Jacksonville and the continued assault on Black people
As segments of the nation remembered the 60th anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington, we simultaneously witnessed another horrendous, senseless act of racially sadistic violence occur in Jacksonville, Fla. Armed with an AR-15 and a handgun decorated with a swastika, 21-year-old Ryan Christopher Palmiter carried out a racist mass...
Tom Pike: Leaders aren’t helpless and must take action on fracking
On Aug. 15, researchers with the University of Pittsburgh and the Pennsylvania Department of Health announced they had found strong links between lymphoma and fracking, as well as asthma and fracking. Lymphoma was found to be 5-7 times as common in people who lived near fracking well pads as those...
Julie Su: Why I’m spending Labor Day in Pittsburgh
America is home to a strong and storied labor movement that has fought many battles to empower workers and protect the rights of hard-working families. That includes in the proud union town of Pittsburgh, where I’m marching today in one of the oldest and largest Labor Day parades in the...
Chris Kelly: Shapiro must rally rescue posse
Sometimes, spurring the cavalry to saddle up is a matter of poking the right rumps. In response to Lackawanna County Department of Health and Human Services Director Bill Browning’s desperate plea for help staffing his desolate Office of Youth and Family Services, state officials said consultants — free agents who...
Carl Kurlander: The WGA/SAG strike and 4 lessons from a steel town for the modern-day labor movement
With Labor Day approaching and the writers and actors strike continuing into the fall, I thought this might be a good time for a historical perspective on the modern-day labor movement. I write as someone whose oldest membership outside of the AAA is the Writers Guild of America (member of...
Peter Morici: How a third-party candidate with a sound economic program could win
A third-party candidate could win the presidency if the major parties offer voters a Biden-Trump rematch. In the 1992 presidential election, Ross Perot managed only 19% of the vote. But the independent candidate was leading in a June Gallup poll shortly before he dropped out only to reenter the race...
John Tamny: Savers and financiers are economy’s lifeblood, so treat them well
In his memoirs about the remarkable rise of The Home Depot, the great Bernie Marcus oh-so-thankfully went against the grain of seemingly all modern thought in writing that “bankers put their careers on the line, and for that we protect them.” Amen. Bankers, investment bankers, VCs and other financial intermediaries...
Bruce Cooper and Mark Reynolds: Climate action has brought major investment, jobs to Pa. Lawmakers should strive for more
One year after a major climate bill was passed, Pennsylvania is flourishing thanks to an influx of clean energy investment and jobs. When the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act was signed into law last August, it unleashed a stream of clean energy projects, with Gov. Josh Shapiro quickly taking the initiative...
