Feb 6, 2015 4 min read

Excerpts from recent editorials in newspapers in the United States as compiled by the Associated Press:

Despite the volley of partisan rhetoric hurled from Capitol Hill to the White House over President Barack Obama’s proposed federal budget, it’s possible to discern the sounds of political harmony beneath the thunder.

The president’s reliance on large tax increases on corporations and the wealthy to finance efforts to help the middle class and create more jobs was a sure bet to be greeted with instant rejection. But there’s something else – something more important, we hope – going on in the larger political discourse under way in the country as candidates gear up for the 2016 election.

The most striking evidence is that even Mitt Romney made it a point before he bowed out of the upcoming race to promise that he would “end the scourge of poverty” if he ran. Similarly, Jeb Bush said in his nondeclaration of a candidacy that, “While the last eight years have been pretty good ones for top earners, they’ve been a lost decade for the rest of America.”

In other words, income inequality, long a fundamental concern of Democrats that President Obama has seized as his current theme, is being recognized by some GOP leaders as a major national issue that deserves a solution.

The best solution outlined in Mr. Obama’s 2016 federal blueprint is a plan to increase jobs by spending $478 billion on transportation and infrastructure over six years. This represents over a third more than the current spending rate and a 78 percent increase for mass transit.

Obama also proposed a host of other programs to help lift incomes. But spending on infrastructure should be a priority because it produces good jobs even as it provides a tangible public benefit.

A full month into 2015, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported 102 cases of measles, a pace surpassing the typical year.

These new infections are a shock to most medical professionals, who could rightly point to a steady decline in cases that culminated with a record low of 86 reported U.S. cases 15 years ago. The hero in this drop was widespread acceptance of vaccinations among U.S. parents.

The villain blamed for today’s alarming rise in measles cases is a small group of parents who are foregoing having their children immunized. Trustworthy health organizations – the CDC, the American Medical Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics, for example – promote the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine, which is 97 percent effective in preventing measles.

Yet the dissenting parents cite unproven medical quackery in justifying their decision to reject vaccinations for children, a practice that endangers both their children as well as many others.

What’s playing out is the consequence of a serious national problem – the lack of trust. For some Americans, healthy skepticism has turned into widespread paranoia.

The dangers of these illogical beliefs are clear. Until this mistrust is bridged, the nation will suffer the consequences.

A report last week from Spectrum Gaming Group, a gambling research outfit, found that greyhound racing in West Virginia is turning into a money-loser.

In the last 10 years, the study found, wagering on greyhounds at the state’s two tracks has dropped by 55 percent, from $35 million in 2004 to $15.8 million in 2013. West Virginia’s two greyhound tracks aren’t alone. Nationally, between 2001 and 2011, the total amount gambled on dog racing declined by 67 percent.

Spectrum suggested a buyout of the dog track industry in West Virginia. That buyout would cost state taxpayers a cool $75 million to make greyhound racing go away.

That dog won’t hunt.

It isn’t the state’s responsibility, or that of taxpayers, to underwrite businesses that are no longer in fashion and can’t make it financially.

Over the years, people’s tastes change, even when it comes to gambling. Greyhound industry owners and officials in West Virginia need to accept that their time is past.