Donald Trump’s endorsement will not help anyone he endorses, other than to add dollars to their coffer.

Donald Trump does not represent middle-America any more than I represent ‘the elite’.

EDITOR: As far as we are concerned, Trump is a self engrandizing, dead beat, ignoramus, blow hard.  He was blessed with a very rich father who would come to his rescue.

From the READING EAGLE Letter:

…After all, it took the attorney general’s investigator an entire year to find the police report filed in 1998. It also took him an entire year to find out that Sandusky wrote a book. Where was the sense of urgency to get a child predator off the streets? What happened to the sense of urgency to report in a timely manner? Who is at fault if Sandusky abused more children from 2008-2011?

So why was Paterno excoriated for not doing enough when Corbett’s office dragged its feet several years later?

There is more to this scandal than the people are being told, but thanks to people such as Phil Knight, Anthony Lubrano and Bill Keisling, who found the courage to say publicly what needed to be said, the public is learning more…

Click here to read the full article.

I had dinner at a local restaurant last evening and heard a waitress lament the impact resulting from Governor Corbett’s decision to cut education funding rather than tax Marcellus Shale gas extraction (as does every other state that produces it).

The city elementary school which her young son attends has cut the librarian from five days to one day a week; all classes must visit that one day since it is closed the rest of the week.  No longer can students come during breaks and free periods to find books, read or do research.

The waitress tries to take her son to the Lancaster Public Library on Duke St., the one nearest her home, but can’t get there often because of her work schedule.  (Most libraries were forced to cut hours 2 years ago after Rendell slashed library funding). So her child, and plenty of others, are now hindered in their ability to improve their reading skills and enjoy reading as a wholesome past-time.  Nor can she benefit from the educational programs.  Don’t our politicians realize that this is why our children and our country is slipping ever farther behind much of the developed world?

Then there’s the librarian: her health care coverage has been eliminated now that she too  is part time.  The government will likely soon be paying her unemployment insurance for doing nothing instead of for teaching our children…and in the process, leave the economy with one less consumer and taxpayer.

Earlier in the afternoon, I asked the young lady cutting my hair at a local salon what she did for health insurance, since she could only get 20 hours a week of work.  She said that she has a couple of more years on her parents’ policy.  Thanks to Obama Care, children can be covered under their parents’ policies until the age of 25.

Where is your evidence for the sweeping generalization that “In general the Lancaster hotels have grown worn and shabby over the half decade of hotel room sales tax. This has discouraged discretioniary visits and affected the entire tourist industry and the overall local economy.”?

EDITOR: Fair question.

1) Comments from leading local hoteliers.

2)  Hotels need to apply an average of 5% of revenue each year towards renovations in order to retain their market position.   It is clear from the county report of hotel sales tax revenue that, despite the addition of the Mariott and other hotels, total revenue has remained the same if not declined.  Operating expenses, taxes and debt service  have to be met.  Renovations  are funded from what is left over.   Result:  Less funds if any left over after meeting expenses, less if any funds for renovation and possible earnings.

3) Contrary to the deceptive assertions that the room sales tax is passed on to customers, in fact most is absorbed by the hotelier through reduction in room rates in order to remain competitive.   The Watchdog’s hotel had experienced this  in Luzerne County when a room sales tax was adopted to fund an arena.   The reduction in earnings the following year  approximated the total amount of  the room sales tax!   The hotel never returned to its prior level of profitability.

4)  If business could raise their prices by 5% (which is the impact of the hotel room sales tax), they would do so!  They don’t because the can’t without reducing revenues and earnings.   This is Economics 1 A.

5)  Worn properties lose customers.  This creates a vicious cycle  of less tourist trade and  less renovation.

6)  The hotel room sales tax is a classic example of killing the goose that laid the golden egg!

The same can be said about [Governor Tom] Corbett (and his entire office) regarding abuses in the Hershey Trust. He turned a blind eye to multiple improprieties and perhaps criminal activity because of political cronyism and a twisted allegiance to former AG, and Hershey Trust board chairman, LeRoy Zimmerman.

The whole mess STINKS, the Hershey Trust, Sandusky, Corbett, the Attorney General’s office — ALL OF IT!!!

The Penn Square Partners’ hotel business revenue and profits are a secret as tightly guarded as if they were a matter of national security, even though the hotel building they occupy is owned by taxpayers, and all of their meeting space from which they collect revenue is actually a part of the convention center.  Their only “lease” is payments on a $24 million Lancaster City-guaranteed construction loan, their only equity is $11 million in unspecified terms; considering they occupy a hotel structure which cost in excess of $76 million to construct, that is quite a deal for them.  Yet they still claim business confidentiality, even though the majority of the assets which they profit from were paid for by taxpayers.

Given the inappropriate secrecy, there is no telling what the Penn Square Partners might end up doing.

EDITOR: Ironically, half owner is the Lancaster Newspapers, Inc. who should be seeking to pry out that information.

There were many wonderful tributes to JoePa during the memorial service yesterday…..Phil Knight’s tribute was the first one to address the ’scandal’, and Mr. Knight was right on the mark.

His message was well recieved by those in attendance. WELL DONE Mr. Knight….you said EXACTLY what needed to be said!!!!!!

In response to:  “Question: would every citizen be fully funded to run for office, or would multiple-level primaries need to be added?”

First of all, that is a good question. Right now, the first step in an election process is getting on the ballot. For the prospective candidate this is done by securing a certain number of valid signatures on a petition, which is then validated by the board of elections. This would not change. What may change is that whoever carries these petitions would not be paid.

Once confirmed as a candidate, a certain budget amount of public money would be given to the candidate to conduct a modest campaign informing voters on why he should be elected and even why another candidate should not. These funds would be accounted for in public filings and subject to audit. The public airwaves might be used to broadcast, at no cost,  debates and/or public service announcements approved by the candidates on an equal time basis.

Whatever additional or alternative procedures are enacted, media influence comes to mind, equal time issues etc,  the bottom line purpose and end result to be achieved  would be to have every political office owned by the people and not the special interests. Politicians at every level would be free to make decisions based upon the common interests of the majority. The check against the majority doing harm would be our existing constitutional tradition for an independent judiciary, and which principle could certainly be improved upon. Getting money out judicial elections would be a big step to better insure that absolutely needed independence.

A side benefit to all this would be that there would be much less money spent on the election process making more money available for important community projects. If we coupled the “waste, fraud, and abuse” and outright theft (legal and otherwise) in the private sector, as well as the public sector, we could balance the budget tomorrow, fund a civilized social security, and “secure the blessings of liberty for ourselves and our posterity” forever.  Get money out of politics or continue to sell it to the highest bidder.

That is the choice.

“I articulate the deepest-felt values of the American people,” Newt Gingrich

We need to examine this claim against his many “articulations”. Does he not also articulate our fears, our ideological biases, our stereotypes, our anger? Does he really articulate the “deepest-felt values of our “better angels”?

Our society is in a very vulnerable position, a position that can be exploited by a clever and well financed demagogue.

Some say all politicians are demagogues and all of them exploit peoples fears for their own power and ego together with the interests of those who finance them. So, their conclusion is that it does not really matter. “In the battle of demagogues, we vote for our own brand”.

If this view prevails we are doomed. As cynical as we may be, we simply cannot afford to indulge our despair.

The Lancaster County Commissioners are NOT going to approve an increase in the “hotel tax”. Period. Craig Lehman is a fiscal conservative, and Scott Martin has been pushing for severe cuts to existing programs. Stuckey would not look good if he were to vote for a tax increase of any kind in today’s economy.

A significant portion of the convention center’s marketing comes from the Pennsylvania Dutch Convention and Visitors Bureau, which would be forced to treat the convention center on an equal basis with all other facilities in Lancaster County if revenue from the “hotel tax” was lost. Interstate Hotels and Resorts is focused on marketing the “integrated facility”; they claim that there is no differentiation between the hotel and convention center when they interact with potential customers. Without the added marketing push from the PDCVB, it would be quite difficult for the convention center to maintain its current level of sales initiatives.

Kevin Molly is absolutely correct in saying what he did; he’s only following a path that was laid out for him years before he ever applied for the job in downtown Lancaster. Those of us who were carefully watching the proposed figures pointed out long before the construction bonds were sold in March of 2007 that the need to increase the “hotel tax” would be inevitable. But without that increase, the convention center will be in serious trouble.