close

Editorial voices from elsewhere

4 min read
article image -

Editorial voices from newspapers around the United States:

If anything good results from the 2016 election, it could be that the unprecedented nature of what has happened will prompt a bit of soul searching by Americans, a moment to scrutinize the political process and find out where things went wrong and commit – as previous generations have done – to building a better system.

If we could back up and start the 2016 campaign process over, many Americans might do so, but there is no going back. We are neck deep in the Rubicon now.

Where might our soul searching begin?

• It may not be a coincidence that candidates have risen to the top at a time when new forms of media that favor shouting over substance, insult over inquiry, drive the modern conversation.

• Big money and its growing role in elections, from the local level to the president, surely also helps explain the alienation and disillusionment many people feel toward the political process and the candidates.

• Our schizophrenic vetting process may be another contributing cause. At the early – primary – level, it favors candidates who are inflexible, moving to the extreme left or right and who are unwilling to compromise. But months later, the general election process is supposed to drive candidates toward the center.

This year, there is little movement to the center. Sooner or later, such a process is bound to leave a large number of Americans without an option.

On the surface, it sounds so good. Hillary Clinton’s plan to increase college opportunities for financially less secure families is a veritable Robin Hood approach of taking from the rich and giving to the poor.

Clinton’s plan is a nod to Bernie Sanders and the constituency she must attract on Election Day. It’s also well-meaning in its attempt to open doors by letting students from families earning less than $125,000 a year attend public universities free. The estimated cost of $500 billion over a decade would be covered by closing tax loopholes that benefit the rich. But Clinton’s proposal is also full of holes.

Smaller private schools in particular could take a serious hit. Many serve women, low-income students and rural areas, as well as religious units, and they could become less diverse as schools search urgently for wealthier students to pay higher costs required by declining enrollment.

If public universities see the enrollment increase a free tuition plan would create, a shortage of classroom space and rising tuition at taxpayers’ expense may follow. Most ominously, private donors who supply endowments and help defray tuition costs may dry up as government takes on the role of paying for college.

Exorbitant college costs and resultant debt is a huge problem in the United States. So yes, something must be done. There is some substance to Clinton’s plan, but it needs more review and some tweaking, which certainly won’t be examined during the presidential campaign and doesn’t help families eyeing their children’s approaching college years with impatience and apprehension.

Lawmakers in West Virginia have been told that allowing Sunday hunting statewide would result in the direct creation of 1,900 jobs, along with $29 million in wages. And the total economic impact, according to John Culclasure with the Congressional Sportsmen’s Foundation, would be the creation of more than 2,600 jobs and more than $50 million in wages, with a total of more than $155 million in economic output.

Those are impressive estimates are hard to ignore in these tough economic times.

Given the decline of the coal industry in West Virginia, every new job created counts. And the new revenue that would be generated from opening up the Mountain State to Sunday hunting would certainly help when it comes to improving the state’s still troubled financial picture.

West Virginia is currently one of 11 states that either prohibit or restrict hunting on Sundays. We believe it is time for this to change.

CUSTOMER LOGIN

If you have an account and are registered for online access, sign in with your email address and password below.

NEW CUSTOMERS/UNREGISTERED ACCOUNTS

Never been a subscriber and want to subscribe, click the Subscribe button below.

Starting at $3.75/week.

Subscribe Today