Editorials from around Pennsylvania

Editorials from around Pennsylvania:

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U.N. WATCH: PEACEKEEPERS’ PAYDAY, May 22

Despite heightened scrutiny and justified outrage over recent allegations of sexual abuse by United Nations peacekeepers, the Obama administration and an obliging Congress saw fit to increase the U.S. share of the peacekeeping budget- well beyond the funding “cap” set by President Clinton’s administration.

A Heritage Foundation analysis found that from 2010-15, the Obama administration exceeded the agreed-on limit by about $1.26 billion, The Washington Examiner reports. Even in 2015, when allegations of abuse involving peacekeeping troops in the Central African Republic broke wide open, the United States contributed $2.3 billion- 28.5 percent of the entire peacekeepers’ budget, according to The Examiner.

The cap is supposed to be 25 percent.

“Obama’s and Congress’ willingness has cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars,” says Heritage scholar Brett Schaefer. Today, the U.S. pays more toward the peacekeepers’ and the U.N.’s regular budgets than the four other permanent members of the Security Council -combined. Meanwhile reports of U.N. peacekeepers sexually abusing children continue to accumulate. It’s alleged that a former U.N. official did nothing for months after the initial report of abuse in the African republic.

The U.S. buys no “peace” by blindly funding a corrupt enterprise.

- Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

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TAKE PRECAUTIONS THIS SUMMER TO AVOID ZIKA VIRUS EXPOSURE, May 23

State officials say Lancaster County, along with 15 other southern Pennsylvania counties, will be closely monitored as part of a statewide plan to combat the Zika virus. The state Department of Environmental Protection will work on eradicating mosquitoes near houses of persons confirmed or suspected to have the virus. There are currently no locally transmitted cases in the continental United States, but officials warn that cases may arise once mosquito season begins in June. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported on Friday that 157 pregnant women in the continental U.S., and 122 in its territories, have tested positive for Zika.

The Zika virus has been quickly spreading in Puerto Rico and throughout Latin America. Soon, it will likely arrive in the United States. And we need to be ready.

Symptoms of the virus- mild fever, rash, join pain and red eyes -aren’t all that dangerous; they can be treated with rest, fluids and acetaminophen. The effects the virus can have on pregnant women and infants are much more concerning.

Health officials say Zika can cause miscarriage and microcephaly, a serious birth defect that causes a baby’s head to be much smaller than expected. This could lead to seizures and problems with speech, eyesight, hearing, movement and swallowing.

To potentially avoid Zika’s devastating, lifelong effects, Pennsylvania, particularly Lancaster and its neighboring counties, must be ready to combat this virus before it arrives.

Thankfully, state officials are not taking the Zika threat lightly.

On the national level, President Barack Obama for months has been urging Congress to pass legislation to fund the fight against Zika. Obama proposed $1.8 billion in funding in February. Last week, House Republicans, including U.S. Rep. Joe Pitts, R-16th District, passed a bill with $622 million to combat Zika. That is disappointing.

“We were able to do it without scooping more money out of the taxpayer’s pocket,” Pitts said in an email. “The funding we passed it completely offset, partly by leftover funds from fighting Ebola.”

We hope Congress can compromise- and compromise quickly -on a bill passed by the Senate that funds roughly $1.1 billion, which is more along the lines of what public health experts say is needed.

Meanwhile, we urge local residents to take precautions at home.

Lancaster General Health Physicians-Infectious Diseases Chair Deborah K. Riley says that because there is no vaccine available, the way to avoid Zika is to avoid mosquito bites.

There are several ways to accomplish that:

Wear long-sleeved shirts and long pants when possible.

Use a mosquito repellent registered by the Environmental Protection Agency, but carefully check labels to make sure it’s safe to use around children and pregnant women.

Keep mosquitoes outside of your home by using air conditioning, window screens or insecticide-treated mosquito netting.

Control mosquito populations around your home by emptying or routinely changing standing water from flowerpots, bird baths and pet dishes.

The CDC recommends that couples expecting a child, or women of child-bearing years, take special care.

Riley advises those who experience only mild symptoms to avoid getting tested for Zika. State officials are expecting more than 200 Zika tests per week this summer. Tests are sent to the CDC in Colorado. Results usually take about six weeks.

These tests, Riley says, should be reserved for “high-risk pregnant patients or for those with severe disease.”

We urge Lancaster County residents to be cautious when traveling outside of the country, and to make the necessary efforts to decrease the mosquito population around their homes.

- LNP

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WANT SECURITY AT THE AIRPORT? FUND IT, May 24

It seems as quaint as a covered wagon now, but there once was a time when you could walk up to the gate at an airport in the United States and buy a ticket for a flight just before takeoff after having gone through no security and having no questions asked.

Airlines wanted passengers to find getting from one destination to another on a plane to be as easy and hassle-free as hopping onboard a bus. It was only after a relentless string of hijackings in the late 1960s and early 1970s by a menagerie of fringe political activists and outright kooks that airlines relented and the Federal Aviation Administration put rules in place requiring metal detectors and the screening of passengers and luggage.

After the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, airport screening became even more stringent, and now simply getting to the gate is an experience that has left many U.S. fliers exhausted and demoralized. As a result of too few personnel, insufficient funding and an apparent desire by the Transportation Safety Administration to save face after a security audit last year found that fake explosives and weapons were able to slip past security a stunning 95 percent of the time, lines at many American airports have become as long and soul-crushing as the old Soviet breadlines.

Though some recent fliers in and out of Pittsburgh International Airport haven’t experienced any problems, passengers at other airports have endured wait times of two or three hours or more to get through security checkpoints. Philadelphia is among the top spots for delays, along with Dallas and Atlanta. This has led to missed flights, stranded passengers, and, you can bet your last dollar, raised blood pressure. With the Memorial Day weekend and the summer travel season imminent, and more customers expected thanks to low fuel prices and an improving economy, this only promises to get worse.

In an attempt to mollify an increasingly angry flying public, the assistant administrator for security at the TSA, the top-ranking security official, was dismissed and a new group of administrators was put in place at Chicago O’Hare International Airport. However, the agency is still facing a shortage of screeners, thanks to morale problems and budget cutting. Its current budget is $7.4 billion, less than the $7.8 billion it was allotted four years ago, even as the number of fliers has increased by 5 percent over the last year. The agency has also been trying to lure more people to sign up for a PreCheck program that allows passengers to undergo a background check before they get to the airport, and allows them to get into a shorter, faster line. But it costs $85 for five years, a price tag that might lead some infrequent fliers to decide to roll the dice and take their chances.

Lawmakers and American taxpayers have a choice- either we pay the price and fly with the greater assurance that comes with exacting security measures, or revert back to something that approximates pre-9/11 security and accept a certain level of risk. Bloomberg View columnist Megan McArdle recently argued that “reinforced cockpit doors and passengers’ new awareness that a hijacking could end in a fiery death” has done more to deter repeats of 9/11 than what she characterized as “security theater.”

We’ve been told over and over again that traveling by air is safer than getting on the highway. The statistics bear this out. But the cost in lost time and aggravation could well lead many people to bypass the airport, gas up the chariot and take to the highway this summer. With punishing holdups awaiting them at some airports, who could really blame them?

- The (Washington) Observer-Reporter

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BATHROOM LAW AIMS TO REVERSE PROGRESS ON TRANSGENDER RIGHTS, May 22

Many Americans who grew up with a particular perspective on what was deviant or “queer” are having a hard time accepting the rapid changes allowing more people to openly identify with a gender other than the one they were born with.

That does not excuse misguided efforts such as North Carolina’s attempt to keep the clock set to a time when being openly gay or transgender invited discrimination and violence. But it does explain the need for patience as those reluctant to change learn to accept, if not embrace, friends, neighbors, and relatives who for generations were expected to stay hidden in the closet.

Think about it: It’s been a half-century since the Supreme Court’s 1967 Loving v. Virginia decision, which invalidated state laws prohibiting interracial marriage. But some mixed-race couples still find themselves enduring long stares or outright ostracism by those who seem to follow George Wallace’s credo: “Segregation today, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever.”

In less than 25 years, the nation has gone from President Bill Clinton’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy on gay soldiers to President Obama’s appointment of Eric Fanning as the first openly gay secretary of the Army. Along the way, more members of another group- transgender people, whose biological sex doesn’t match the gender their brains tell them they are -have decided to stop pretending to be something they aren’t in search of acceptance.

A 2011 study by the Williams Institute estimated that eight million Americans are gay, lesbian, or bisexual and an additional 700,000 are transgender. Easily the most well-known person among the latter is Caitlyn Jenner, who before her coming out was known as Bruce Jenner, winner of the 1976 Olympic gold medal in the decathlon.

As with Jenner, transgender identity doesn’t necessarily involve sex-reassignment surgery. The American Medical Association has recommended that states not make changing the gender designation of a birth certificate contingent on the surgery, which can cost up to $50,000.

The fact that you can’t identify a transgender person by looking at him or her apparently prompted North Carolina’s absurd law requiring people to use bathrooms that correspond with their sex at birth. Will birth certificates now be required to enter a bathroom stall?

The law ostensibly was passed to deter sexual predators. But transgender individuals who are forced to use bathrooms where bigots are more likely to attack them may be in greater need of protection.

Obama’s response to the North Carolina law was also heavy-handed. He demanded that it not be enforced and hinted that the state could lose federal education dollars if it does not comply. Rather than ease tensions, this exacerbated them. Twelve states say they will join North Carolina in defying Obama. Suits have been filed to sort out who has the Constitution on their side.

Despite all the agitated rhetoric being tossed about, history suggests that discrimination will lose in the end. Younger Americans don’t have the same gender prejudices as their parents. In a sense, a natural progression is occurring that is in keeping with the advent of coed dorms and unisex public bathrooms. The speed of change requires patience for those having a hard time accepting it, but change is inevitable.

- The Philadelphia Inquirer

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PENSION COSTS DEMAND ACTION, May 21

The Democratic Wolf administration and Republican legislative majorities have just begun the battle over the 2016-2017 state government budget. But one thing already is certain- both sides’ failure to reform the pension systems for state and public school employees means that taxpayers will pay a whopping $6.1 billion pension bill, a 257 percent increase over the $1.7 billion pension cost just five years ago.

Such ineffectiveness is breathtaking, all the more so because lawmakers claim to have established effective reforms in 2010. They were tweaks, however, that did not get at the heart of the problem. And now, a new reform bill constitutes yet another partial measure.

Lawmakers created the crisis in 2001 when they increased their own benefit by 50 percent and those for school and state employees by 25 percent, then decided that investment revenue would cover the costs.

They followed up with increases for people who already had retired, and deferred state payments into the system.

Now that the bill has come due, lawmakers refuse to undo their own botched governance. Yet again, they have introduced a bill that focuses entirely on new state and school employees, rather than returning themselves and current employees to the generous 2001 benefit levels.

The House State Government Committee has approved a “stacked hybrid” plan for new employees only. Rather than the traditional defined benefit plan, the bill would create a combination plan, retaining the traditional pension to a certain salary level, and converting anything beyond that to a 401(k)-type defined contribution plan capping taxpayer’s contributions at 4 percent.

Because the idea deals only with new employees, it would save only $10 billion over 30 years. The pensions now are underfunded by about $55 billion.

That 30-year figure is telling. As long as legislators restrict reforms only to new employees, rather than correcting their own unconscionable benefit levels and those of current state and school employees, that’s how long it will take to fix the system.

Back-breaking pension costs borne solely by taxpayers will remain an ugly legacy of this Legislature’s era unless current lawmakers get serious about reform.

- The (Hazleton) Standard-Speaker

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