Letters to the editor for Aug. 3

Thanks for your service, Keith Stahley

I want to thank The Olympian for the article on the departing Olympia assistant city manager, Mr. Keith Stahley.

I thought it was both informative and reassuring to know that someone like Mr. Stahley is out there and working to serve and help the beautiful city of Olympia, and I regret but also understand his move to Salem, Oregon for a new job in public service.

The issue which he is most closely associated with here — homelessness — has been addressed in a very humane and thoughtful way, and I at least wish to thank him. I also commend him for his bicycle-friendly lifestyle, which I very much share and hope others emulate.

I wish him the best and commend his efforts.

Thomas Joseph Weissenberger, Lacey

Expand the Child Tax Credit

Come on, really?

The U.S. Senate just voted to support chip manufacturers with government subsidies and tax credits for U.S. semiconductor production and research, to the tune of $52 billion.

Yet support for a permanent extension of the Child Tax Credit (CTC) — a tax credit that reduced child poverty by 40% last year — languishes for lack of Senate support.

Reducing child poverty doesn’t have to compete with chip manufacturers. We could support both. But the Senate is not.

Twenty-seven million children living in low-income families were lifted out of poverty last year — July to December 2021 — by the expansion of the CTC. Families used those tax credits, in the form of monthly payments, to pay for food, rent, and other essentials.

Now those millions of children have fallen back into poverty — an increase of 41% in one month — as the expanded CTC expired in December. And the Senate has refused to take this up.

We recently had excellent meetings with Rep. Marilyn Strickland, and with Patty Murray’s and Maria Cantwell’s aides. All support expanding the CTC permanently. All were frustrated by the Senate’s refusal to take action.

Sen. Mitt Romney has proposed a new “child allowance” similar to the expanded CTC. This is encouraging, and though there are serious concerns with parts (it excludes the lowest-income children, and cuts other important programs to finance the plan), release of the plan helps foster efforts to build Republican support for an expansion.

Somehow, the Senate needs to figure out how to choose chips AND children.

Carolyn Prouty, Elma

Vote Democratic, block GOP’s ‘new normal’

“The only way to save American democracy is for voters to vote against all Republicans in future elections.” That’s actually true — but the positive impact of voting Democratic would be far greater than just saving democracy.

Consider the phrase “the new normal.” The new normal is a condition of our daily lives, rare or non-existent in the past, that is now so commonplace and persistent that we accept it as something we’ll just have to live with for all of future time.

One new normal is climate catastrophes and the inability of our institutions to prevent them. Another is the rising tide of American gun violence. Another is the stream of hostile rulings from the Republicans’ U.S. Supreme Court. Endless wars and uprisings abroad. Rising numbers of increasingly desperate people trying to leave their homelands and enter Europe and America. The rapid-fire emergences of new deadly pandemic diseases and their variants. The rise of authoritarian mobs and dictator wannabes worldwide. Shortages of decent housing, spreading world hunger, and homelessness.

All of the above are stoked by the obstruction of the Biden Administration’s efforts to deal with them by U.S. Senate Republicans. With the help of “Democrat” Joe Manchin. And busy state-level Republicans.

Keeping Republicans out of elected office is crucial, not only to saving American democracy but for challenging the global “new normals” that are threatening civilization itself. If we Americans don’t do it …. the next generation will view our “new normal” as “the good old days.”

David H. Milne, Lacey