Dec 17, 2004 4 min read

I applaud Fayette County Commissioners Zimmerlink and Vicites for saving the county roughly $100,000 per year by adopting flat fees for the collection of real estate taxes. Our legislators in Harrisburg should learn from the commissioners and spend more of their time making government more efficient and less of their time trying to figure out how to raise their salaries and our taxes.

For example, take the earned income tax. Pennsylvania should adopt a system of combining local earned income tax filing with state income fax filing.

This would save taxpayers the burden of multiple filing and would save municipalities and school districts at least $100 million per year (refer to the Governor’s Center for Local Governments Services at http://www.inventpa.com).

I estimate that a statewide saving of $100 million or 5.9 percent of the $570 million in total collections equates to about $700,000 of savings per year for municipalities and school districts in Fayette County (estimate based on 5.9 percent of $12,000,000 in earned income tax collections).

This is seven times the estimated real estate tax savings. And that figure could increase proportionately to any increases in the earned income tax. Why have not the fiscally conservative Republicans, who control the Legislature, done anything to eliminate this unnecessary waste?

I would like to believe that their lack of action isn’t influenced by political contributions.

We need to send a message to our legislators: Cut spending through efficiency in government before raising our taxes.

Joe Cocalis

Point Marion

Questions raised about attack

Another Dec. 7 has passed with the usual ceremonies and tributes to the attack on Pearl Harbor.

While there can be no question that those who died, as well as those who survived, deserve our utmost respect, we must also realize that much of what we were taught about the attack on Pearl Harbor is not completely true. Since the attack on Pearl an astonishing amount of information has come to light leaving absolutely no doubt that George C. Marshall and Franklin Roosevelt knew the Japanese were going to attack and took steps to ensure they would be terribly successful.

In a brief period before the attack, American intelligence had broken the Japanese radio code and Marshall and Roosevelt knew every move the Japanese were making.

Also, shortly before the attack, a large number of body bags were delivered to Pearl. When military commanders, Admiral Kimmell and Lt. General Short, took steps to spread out our war planes (making them less susceptible to air attack) Washington issued orders to keep the planes in close quarters, making it much easier for the Japanese to destroy them.

These are but a few facts that lead anyone with a slight bit of intelligence to realize that we were victimized not only by our enemy but also by those we have mistakenly made heroes of.

After the attack, Marshall repeatedly said that he had been horseback riding the morning of the attack, and when he was informed of the decoded Japanese messages he instructed staff to alert Pearl via commercial radio service. Why did Marshall not use the telephone? Because Marshall had no desire to stop the attack.

Marshall and Roosevelt needed to get America into the war to distract the people from their failed socialist/communist economic policies that so many in Fayette arise every morning and pray to see again. They also wanted to further their internationalist desires for world government that we now call the United Nations.

Roosevelt was very quick to point the finger at Kimmell and Short, and the American people went for it. However, in the time since the attack, both Kimmell and Short have been completely cleared of any wrongdoing by the very government that once accused them.

The lies of Pearl Harbor have been made possible by the greatest generation that has in reality proven itself to be the most easily duped, and please-don’t-confuse-me-with-the-facts generation, keeping their heads in the sand and their mouths shut in exchange for a Social Security check.

Many who read this will be offended. That is all right, as I am offended that my generation has been led to believe that men who were at best communist sympathizers and at worst traitors are heroes.

Many books on the lies of Pearl Harbor have been written. Some of them as early as the 1940s. How many of them are in the library of your local government run public school?

Brian K. Lutes

Uniontown