Tucson Speaks Out: March 26 letters of the day

When your Social Security is gone, when your daughter bleeds to death from a miscarriage because of anti-abortion laws, when you can’t marry who you love, or get access to contraceptives, when you watch your father called “boy” in the year 2025, and you can’t get paid minimum wage or be accepted to a college, when no questions are ever asked any more when police publicly gun down and kill your brother, when Christian nationalism takes over America, remember you voted because of Gaza and the price of gas. Germany is paying $5.57 for a gallon of gas along with the rest of Europe. And I’m sure it’s still all Biden/Obama’s fault they are paying more for gas there than here!

Terry Louck

East side

Rent control

Re: the March 22 letter “Two words.”

The letter writer offers the communist solution for affordable housing: rent control. I offer the opposite solution: the marketplace. Increase supply to meet demand, and the price of rent stabilizes or declines.

The heavy hand of government on price (rent, in this case) has never worked. Recently, St. Paul, Minnesota, passed a more restrictive rent control than even Minneapolis. The result, developers halted all building plans for rental housing and began planning to modify existing properties into condos for sale.

There is nothing wrong with ordinances ensuring safety of buildings, but when regulations add unnecessary delay and costs to projects, developers build elsewhere or build non-rental projects.

Steve Scholl

Oro Valley

Thank you, AZ Daily Star

Re: the March 22 article “Leaders must be bridge builders, peacemakers” and “Were we really ‘better off’ under Trump’s presidency?”

Wanted to thank the writers and the Arizona Daily Star for printing these well-thought-out and informative articles, which not only affect us here in our great nation but have impacts across the entire globe. We live in turbulent times, and I can only imagine what the Greatest Generation must be thinking as we, their progeny, try to deal with them. We are at a crossroads in our nation’s history and future generations will judge us on how we navigate these troubled waters. Thank you, Ms. Verdugo, and to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch for their thoughtful and insightful articles and for taking the time to publish them. I only hope that more people will read them and take their comments to heart.

Peter Garcia

Northeast side

Biden has been a great president

Many letters have focused on why voters should vote against Trump. This letter focuses on why one should vote FOR Biden.

Biden has been a really good president, by many metrics. Unemployment is low. Salaries are increasing. Inflation, while high at the beginning of his presidency due to the pandemic, is falling. Fewer people are uninsured. Economists were nearly unanimous in predicting a recession, but it didn’t happen, in large part due to Biden’s policies, including the American Rescue Plan, the Infrastructure Act, Inflation Reduction Act and the CHIPs Act. Biden is investing in climate change, a true existential threat. He increased the IRS’s budget, thereby increasing revenue and decreasing tax evasion. He enabled Medicare to negotiate prescription drug prices. He has increased the standing and respect for the United States. Violent crime has decreased. I could go on. I encourage readers to google Biden’s accomplishments.

Melanie Bell

Midtown

Dogs and leashes

Re: the March 24 article “Unleashed dogs.”

I sympathize with the letter writer and his dog. I, too, have experienced dogs attacking both my dog and myself while their owners stood by or could not control their animals. In my case, the attacks cost me several thousand dollars, myself in ER, my dog having surgery.

The writer shares they now carry tear gas. I now carry mace and will not hesitate to use it. I recently spoke to a vet at Monument Veterinarian Hospital about using tear gas or any type of mace on an attacking dog. Her comments were chilling. “A dog sprayed with mace or any kind of military tear gas in the face or anywhere near their eyes will likely lose its eyesight or suffer sight impairment the rest of its life. She said this may occur within 30 days.

Dog owners who refuse to leash their dogs, I hope you know a good attorney.

Tom Staab

East side

Reply to editorial re: immigration

Re: the March 24 article “The politics of hate.”

It’s disappointing that the Daily Star not only supports undocumented immigration, but advocates further expenditures to help the undocumented immigrants. Undocumented immigrants are already costing U.S. taxpayers $150 billion per year. The Daily Star wants legislation to “address ... the current crisis” of undocumented aliens and blames the Republicans for not supporting more spending on undocumented.

The fact is that more legislation is not needed to “address the current crisis.” President Biden could simply issue executive orders for undocumented to stay in Mexico until they can be legally processed into this country, much as President Trump did, when undocumented immigration was not the huge problem that it is today.

The current immigration crisis has been created solely by President Biden and his fellow far-left Democrats. Immigration is now the No. 1 issue to Americans, and 70% of them disapprove of Biden’s handling of immigration. So, according to a great majority of Americans, the Daily Star is on the wrong side of this issue.

David Pearse

Foothills