Letters to the editor: Defunding police, back to school and the American Dream

Defunding police

“Defunding” is a very unfortunate term. What is really needed is “right sizing/right funding.”

Clearly, police departments and missions have lost the confidence of a large percentage of their customer base. In many areas, like rural Idaho, or even Boise, probably little more than some serious reflection and “tweaking” is needed to the overall mission and budgets. But in many urban areas, more drastic and meaningful changes to mission are needed. Just as in private industry, when your customers no longer trust your product, you must regain their trust with actions. Otherwise, you can’t be effective or efficiently utilize the funding you receive.

In those cases, it is time to redefine the police mission and fund that redefined mission appropriately. If social services and schools need greater funding then the basic question remains how to pay for it?

For state and local governments, there are only two choices: 1. reduce spending elsewhere -- transportation, health care, police and fire, government services, or 2. raise revenue -- taxes and fees.

The feds can “print money” so maybe do a series of “grants”? We can underwrite corporate profits, so why not underwrite basic citizen needs? Of course, again, a balancing act.

Mike Teller, Boise

Back to school

We just received the notice from Boise Public Schools that school will start in August. One thing that was absent was a mention of masks. It’s no secret that Idaho is a state that avoids laws that are perceived to limit personal liberties. But since we wasted hundreds of thousands of dollars litigating who could and could not marry, you’d think we could at least tell kids to wear masks in school. The science for wearing them is overwhelming. Two infected hair stylists in Missouri recently cut 140 customers’ hair in close proximity. No one got sick. Why? They wore masks. Sure, kids will pull their masks down periodically. They’re going to touch things. But even if half the kids wear masks half the time, lives will be saved. COVID-19 cases are rising in Idaho. And if you’re a person with arthritis, diabetes, eczema, MS or any autoimmune disease, you’re likely on immunosuppressants and high risk for morbidity. Same if you’re overweight, have heart disease or are over 60. And yet, we’re going to send kids to school without masks, simply because we don’t want to intrude on rights or make them anxious. You know what makes a kid really anxious? Losing a parent.

Ward Duft, Boise

American Dream

If the pandemic has shone light on anything lately it is the fractures and fissures within the American Dream. No more true is daily exposed than the hospitality industry.

With 44% of Americans considered low-wage workers, it is disheartening that those most at risk with the reopening of our nation are the lowest-wage workers with almost obsolete safety nets. The precarious nature of the industry and their jobs is a driving factor to the continuation of attrition and lack of upward mobility. These are not low-skill jobs; they are low-wage jobs.

Policymakers and the private sector leaders can create meaningful change that might begin to heal this nation while redirecting it back to the national platform that promulgates equity that nations like Singapore, Germany, Austria and France otherwise do already. The American Dream is not dead, but it hasn’t actively adapted with the fast-paced and ever-evolving world we live in today. The private sector’s investment in decreasing the skills gap and pay gap would not only show in dividends in the good times but in times of pandemic and uncertainty.

Sasha Fisher, Coeur d’ Alene

This story was originally published June 18, 2020 at 2:46 PM.