Tax everybody
Question: Is it fair to give the waitress a tax break but not the cook? Is it fair to exempt overtime pay from taxes while a salaried employee gets no such break? Of course not.
A fair tax system taxes all income, including capital gains, at the same rate. The GOP wish to eliminate all income taxes within 10 years only means that revenue has to be replaced somehow, most likely with an increase in the sales tax, which is the most regressive tax of all.
Wake up, Ohio!
Edward Glinski, Westerville
Who needs lettuce anyway?
Ohio does not need iceberg lettuce on every taco and sandwich. It needs food.
Lettuce is about 95% water. A hundred grams of iceberg delivers roughly 14 calories and a gram of protein. That is garnish,
not nourishment. Darker leaves carry more vitamins A and K. None of them feed a household the way beans, potatoes, eggs or cabbage do.
What lettuce delivered this summer is illness. Federal agencies have tied a Cyclospora outbreak in iceberg lettuce from Mexico to more than 11,000 cases, nearly 500 hospitalizations and two deaths in 20 states. Ohio is on that list. The state has already recorded more than 6,000 cyclospora infections this year – many times the usual count. Recalled shredded iceberg moved through restaurants here.
The crop is eaten raw, grown low to the ground and bagged for a national pipeline. Washing does not make that safe enough. Cooking would. Nobody cooks iceberg.
If the argument is salad, eat the rest of the bowl. A garnish that yields almost no calories and sickens thousands is not a food supply. It is a habit.
Ray Watford, Hilliard
Our freedoms will stop showing up too
Our democracy is not guaranteed.
It survives only when ordinary people decide it’s worth fighting for – and right now, it absolutely is. We’re watching political norms crack, rights get chipped away, and basic truths twisted beyond recognition. If we sit back and hope someone else will fix it, we may wake up in a country we barely recognize.
This election isn’t just another date on the calendar. It’s a line in the sand. Either we show up, or we watch our freedoms erode one by one. Either we participate, or we hand the future to people who have no interest in us or democracy.
So yes – vote. But don’t stop there.
Help your neighbors register. Offer rides to others. Democracy doesn’t defend itself; people do.
If we want a country where rights are protected, elections are fair, and leaders respect the Constitution, then we need to act like it. Sitting out is not an option. Not now.
Show up. Help others show up. Our way of life depends on it.
Elizabeth Carr, Newark
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Waitresses should be taxed like everyone else. Don't let the 'breaks' fool you | Letters
