thedrifter
06-03-07, 07:29 AM
Editorials from throughout Pennsylvania
The Associated Press
HONOR THEIR SACRIFICE, COURAGE
Here at home, we Americans were embroiled in controversy Memorial Day weekend: Should U.S. troops continue to fight and die in Iraq? Are they being used effectively in Afghanistan?
Even as that controversy grows stronger and, yes, more bitter each day, the troops go about their duties. They seek out Taliban terrorists in Afghanistan. They search for al-Qaida operatives in Iraq.
And in the course of those missions, some of them die. We hope it won't be the case, but there is the chance that on this very day, as our nation pays homage to its fallen servicemen and women, more will join the ranks of our honored dead.
For those in uniform, there is no controversy, only the knowledge that they have been called upon to serve their fellow Americans in dangerous, faraway places and the determination to do so to the very best of their abilities.
While we at home argue about how the war is being waged or, sometimes, about whether our soldiers, sailors, aviators and Marines should be in it at all, they do battle for us. Their priorities are their country and their comrades in arms who need them.
On Memorial Day, Americans paused to honor the men and women who have given their lives for their country - for each and every one of us. We think of the sacrifices they made, simply because they were asked to serve.
We think of their selfless courage and their dedicated patriotism. Often, we stop to ponder just how much we as a nation have lost because they, our very best, never came home.
And we thank God for them - for men and women to whom Duty, Honor and Country are words spelled with capital letters. Our fervent prayer on Memorial Day was that God will watch over those who continue to serve us. As we ask that, we add a heartfelt prayer of thanksgiving for those already in his keeping.
-The (Altoona) Mirror
STATE LEGISLATORS SHOULD HEED WARNINGS, GIVE LOCAL AMBULANCE COMPANIES CPR
Within the space of three months this spring, several nonprofit ambulance organizations throughout the region revealed a serious need for financial resuscitation. In March, Perkasie Community Ambulance in Bucks County shut down when its financial and management problems proved insurmountable.
Also in March, Jim Thorpe Emergency Medical Service in Carbon County consolidated with nearby Lehighton Ambulance after a period of difficulty in raising money and recruiting volunteers. Supervisors in Upper Saucon Township announced plans to merge ambulance services in Upper Saucon, Lower Milford and Coopersburg to reduce costs.
In April, the Williams Township Emergency Squad in Northampton County announced it will close by June 30, due to a lack of volunteers. Then this month, the Dublin Regional EMS in Upper Bucks closed for financial reasons not long after it was evicted from its headquarters. A chart published with a story Monday cited a number of other ambulance companies throughout this region that have dealt with financial problems and insufficient volunteer recruitments dating to 2001.
Momentum is growing for changes in the way emergency services are funded in this state - so much so, U.S. Rep. Patrick Murphy, D-Bucks, held a hearing at Delaware Valley College in Doylestown Township. Many people don't understand that the closest ambulance services to their homes aren't affiliated with local fire departments. Municipalities spend a considerable amount of money on fire and police departments, but state laws don't require them to provide funds for ambulance crews.
The amount of work they do, however, is tremendous. There are nearly 1,000 licensed organizations that treat 1.6 million patients annually. But closings and mergers obviously would mean longer response times, and worse.
How long would it take an ambulance to reach your home? With each passing year, the answer to that question could be more troublesome as financial woes leave more ambulance services with no other options than to close or merge, if they are to stay in operation.
In 2004, a state Senate Commission called for a change in the state borough and municipal codes and Pennsylvania manual so that "emergency medical services" would become part of a list of services that municipalities are required to provide.
The Legislature needs to address the issues that have an impact on emergency services. For example, medical insurance reimbursement checks are sent to patients, who then are supposed to forward the money to the ambulance squads. It is easy to see why ambulance services would prefer a law requiring insurance companies to send reimbursements directly to ambulance companies. It's long past time to give ambulance crews CPR.
-The (Allentown) Morning Call
2007 FARM BILL: CULTIVATING SANER POLICY
Congress isn't very good at big bills - those phone-book-sized proposals to transform policy on energy, transportation, immigration or Social Security. It's especially tough when new thinking is required.
In complex bills, everybody wants something. Interest groups ramp up; lobbying is intense. Priorities fall victim to horsetrading. In the end, bills often are drained of meaning, and bloated fiscally. Reform hopes evaporate.
Those dangers lurk as House and Senate subcommittees craft the 2007 farm bill, which must pass by Sept. 30. Too much is at stake for Congress to revert to bad habits this time.
The farm bill covers aid to farmers, fair trade, nutrition for the poor, conservation, agricultural research, energy policy, forestry and rural development. Predictably, various interests are competing for a cut of a limited pool of money.
What's different this year is the diverse coalition of politicians, farmers, taxpayer groups, environmentalists and international nongovernmental groups jointly demanding changes to traditional farm subsidies. Ninety percent of farm-subsidy payments are channeled to growers of just five crops: wheat, rice, corn, soybeans and cotton.
That means fruit and vegetable growers in states like Pennsylvania, New Jersey and fecund California get next to nothing. Commercial farms, though just 17 percent of all farms, received 56 percent of the pot in 2004, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The system is unbalanced and unfair.
Current policy distorts international and domestic commodity prices, drives small and family farmers out of the market, favors crops of poor nutritional value, transfers billions in tax dollars to a select few producers and condones poor land use. That must change.
Over the past year, Secretary of Agriculture Mike Johanns, a former governor of Nebraska, toured the country, listened to farmers and embraced practical reforms.
In January, initial bills focused on improving America's food supply and environmental stewardship.
But beginning work this month, the agriculture committees seem to be plodding down a conventional trail, seemingly oblivious to cries for a radical shift from the 2002 bill.
In contrast, Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., and Reps. Ron Kind, D.-Wisc., and Jeff Flake, R-Ariz, offer a sensible subsidy overhaul. Their bills replace four major subsidy programs with a "risk-management account" controlled by individuals to guard against steep price fluctuations. Farmers also could buy federally subsidized crop insurance.
The program would save $55 billion over 10 years, sponsors estimate. Some money would wisely go toward deficit reduction. The balance should be used to provide more food stamps, expand land conservation, research and commercialize biofuels, and shore up specialty crop markets.
This country needs better farm policy - to provide a farmer safety net, to protect the land, to rectify international trade inequity, to feed the poor. Congress should nurture the good seeds that have been planted.
-The Philadelphia Inquirer
Ellie
The Associated Press
HONOR THEIR SACRIFICE, COURAGE
Here at home, we Americans were embroiled in controversy Memorial Day weekend: Should U.S. troops continue to fight and die in Iraq? Are they being used effectively in Afghanistan?
Even as that controversy grows stronger and, yes, more bitter each day, the troops go about their duties. They seek out Taliban terrorists in Afghanistan. They search for al-Qaida operatives in Iraq.
And in the course of those missions, some of them die. We hope it won't be the case, but there is the chance that on this very day, as our nation pays homage to its fallen servicemen and women, more will join the ranks of our honored dead.
For those in uniform, there is no controversy, only the knowledge that they have been called upon to serve their fellow Americans in dangerous, faraway places and the determination to do so to the very best of their abilities.
While we at home argue about how the war is being waged or, sometimes, about whether our soldiers, sailors, aviators and Marines should be in it at all, they do battle for us. Their priorities are their country and their comrades in arms who need them.
On Memorial Day, Americans paused to honor the men and women who have given their lives for their country - for each and every one of us. We think of the sacrifices they made, simply because they were asked to serve.
We think of their selfless courage and their dedicated patriotism. Often, we stop to ponder just how much we as a nation have lost because they, our very best, never came home.
And we thank God for them - for men and women to whom Duty, Honor and Country are words spelled with capital letters. Our fervent prayer on Memorial Day was that God will watch over those who continue to serve us. As we ask that, we add a heartfelt prayer of thanksgiving for those already in his keeping.
-The (Altoona) Mirror
STATE LEGISLATORS SHOULD HEED WARNINGS, GIVE LOCAL AMBULANCE COMPANIES CPR
Within the space of three months this spring, several nonprofit ambulance organizations throughout the region revealed a serious need for financial resuscitation. In March, Perkasie Community Ambulance in Bucks County shut down when its financial and management problems proved insurmountable.
Also in March, Jim Thorpe Emergency Medical Service in Carbon County consolidated with nearby Lehighton Ambulance after a period of difficulty in raising money and recruiting volunteers. Supervisors in Upper Saucon Township announced plans to merge ambulance services in Upper Saucon, Lower Milford and Coopersburg to reduce costs.
In April, the Williams Township Emergency Squad in Northampton County announced it will close by June 30, due to a lack of volunteers. Then this month, the Dublin Regional EMS in Upper Bucks closed for financial reasons not long after it was evicted from its headquarters. A chart published with a story Monday cited a number of other ambulance companies throughout this region that have dealt with financial problems and insufficient volunteer recruitments dating to 2001.
Momentum is growing for changes in the way emergency services are funded in this state - so much so, U.S. Rep. Patrick Murphy, D-Bucks, held a hearing at Delaware Valley College in Doylestown Township. Many people don't understand that the closest ambulance services to their homes aren't affiliated with local fire departments. Municipalities spend a considerable amount of money on fire and police departments, but state laws don't require them to provide funds for ambulance crews.
The amount of work they do, however, is tremendous. There are nearly 1,000 licensed organizations that treat 1.6 million patients annually. But closings and mergers obviously would mean longer response times, and worse.
How long would it take an ambulance to reach your home? With each passing year, the answer to that question could be more troublesome as financial woes leave more ambulance services with no other options than to close or merge, if they are to stay in operation.
In 2004, a state Senate Commission called for a change in the state borough and municipal codes and Pennsylvania manual so that "emergency medical services" would become part of a list of services that municipalities are required to provide.
The Legislature needs to address the issues that have an impact on emergency services. For example, medical insurance reimbursement checks are sent to patients, who then are supposed to forward the money to the ambulance squads. It is easy to see why ambulance services would prefer a law requiring insurance companies to send reimbursements directly to ambulance companies. It's long past time to give ambulance crews CPR.
-The (Allentown) Morning Call
2007 FARM BILL: CULTIVATING SANER POLICY
Congress isn't very good at big bills - those phone-book-sized proposals to transform policy on energy, transportation, immigration or Social Security. It's especially tough when new thinking is required.
In complex bills, everybody wants something. Interest groups ramp up; lobbying is intense. Priorities fall victim to horsetrading. In the end, bills often are drained of meaning, and bloated fiscally. Reform hopes evaporate.
Those dangers lurk as House and Senate subcommittees craft the 2007 farm bill, which must pass by Sept. 30. Too much is at stake for Congress to revert to bad habits this time.
The farm bill covers aid to farmers, fair trade, nutrition for the poor, conservation, agricultural research, energy policy, forestry and rural development. Predictably, various interests are competing for a cut of a limited pool of money.
What's different this year is the diverse coalition of politicians, farmers, taxpayer groups, environmentalists and international nongovernmental groups jointly demanding changes to traditional farm subsidies. Ninety percent of farm-subsidy payments are channeled to growers of just five crops: wheat, rice, corn, soybeans and cotton.
That means fruit and vegetable growers in states like Pennsylvania, New Jersey and fecund California get next to nothing. Commercial farms, though just 17 percent of all farms, received 56 percent of the pot in 2004, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The system is unbalanced and unfair.
Current policy distorts international and domestic commodity prices, drives small and family farmers out of the market, favors crops of poor nutritional value, transfers billions in tax dollars to a select few producers and condones poor land use. That must change.
Over the past year, Secretary of Agriculture Mike Johanns, a former governor of Nebraska, toured the country, listened to farmers and embraced practical reforms.
In January, initial bills focused on improving America's food supply and environmental stewardship.
But beginning work this month, the agriculture committees seem to be plodding down a conventional trail, seemingly oblivious to cries for a radical shift from the 2002 bill.
In contrast, Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., and Reps. Ron Kind, D.-Wisc., and Jeff Flake, R-Ariz, offer a sensible subsidy overhaul. Their bills replace four major subsidy programs with a "risk-management account" controlled by individuals to guard against steep price fluctuations. Farmers also could buy federally subsidized crop insurance.
The program would save $55 billion over 10 years, sponsors estimate. Some money would wisely go toward deficit reduction. The balance should be used to provide more food stamps, expand land conservation, research and commercialize biofuels, and shore up specialty crop markets.
This country needs better farm policy - to provide a farmer safety net, to protect the land, to rectify international trade inequity, to feed the poor. Congress should nurture the good seeds that have been planted.
-The Philadelphia Inquirer
Ellie