Tucson Speaks Out: September 7

Midterm elections

President Trump is using the fabricated issue of voting fraud to justify creating a means to control voting by mail. As an American, I never thought my vote would be threatened by my own government. But let’s see this for what it is: Trump is afraid of losing control of Congress and is searching for a means to confuse and reject the results of the election, state by state. He fears losing the House, but now the Senate too looms as a possibility. If it happens, he will attempt to control Congress through his veto, a problematic strategy at best. But worse, he might be faced with ANOTHER vote of impeachment and a Senate trial, a painful blister on his legacy, and perhaps the loss of his office. Let’s do everything we can to make this happen. For the future of our country, top to bottom, vote Arizona blue.

Christine Flanagan

West side

Mail-in ballots

As a former poll worker in Pima County, I thought I would share a couple of things I plan to do in the November election. First, I am a mail-in voter, and the county informs you by email when the ballots are mailed. If I do not receive my ballot, I plan to go to the polls and ask for a provisional ballot (given if you are marked as a mail-in ballot voter, etc.) and vote. If I do receive my mail-in ballot, I will not (unfortunately) trust the U.S. mail but will take it directly to my nearest polling location and deposit it in the box personally. I will also offer to take any friend or neighbor who wishes to do the same. (You cannot "harvest" and deposit numerous ballots for others.)

Vote in November.

Norma Guest

East side

Who does Ciscomani work for?

Representative Juan Ciscomani’s re-election ads say he works for Pima County. His record says otherwise.

Ciscomani’s support for Trump-backed legislation undercuts that claim. The so-called Big Beautiful Bill has cost more than 400,000 Arizonans, including tens of thousands of Pima County residents, their SNAP benefits and will subject an estimated 25,000 to 35,000 residents ages 18 to 64 to Medicaid work requirements beginning in December. For many older adults, finding work is not simple.

The bill also favors the wealthiest Americans through tax cuts. Forbes lists 16 billionaires in Arizona, all in Maricopa County and none in Pima County. Yet local residents are losing essential benefits while people outside our community gain favorable treatment.

His ads also tout the Stop Insider Trading Act, but that bill does not place the same limits on the executive branch, including the Oval Office. That omission matters.

The question remains: who does Juan Ciscomani really work for? The answer does not appear to be us.

Betsy Wexler

Oro Valley

New Program at U of A

I read with interest the story about the combined engineering and business program at the U of A. There was an element of Back to the Future. Back in the 1970s, my father, Robert P. Benzinger, was head of the Industrial Design department at Arizona State. He learned that employers wanted graduates with both technical and management skills to prepare them for management roles. He partnered with William Huizingh, then associate dean of the business college, to design a program in Technical Management. Despite an enthusiastic reception from employers, the proposal was killed by the administration for bureaucratic reasons. At the time, accreditors limited the number of non-technical classes that students in technical programs could take. So, to implement the program would have threatened ASU's accreditation. Fortunately, times have changed. Congratulations to UA for implementing this eminently practical idea.

Robert A. Benzinger

Northeast side

The growing national debt

The national debt keeps growing larger at an increasing rate. The current federal administration is interested in cutting taxes but has little interest in reducing spending. It occurs to me that soon the federal administration will declare that the only way to protect our financial system will be to eliminate entitlement programs. Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid may not be around much longer. Medicaid and SNAP have already been attacked, and USAID is gone. Republicans never liked these programs anyway. To them, these programs are socialism. If you want to protect these and other programs, vote for candidates who will respond to their constituents and not for those who answer only to the current administration.

Lyn Doose

East side