Hampden bus disservice
At three public hearings on whether to continue Saturday bus service for Hampden, it was refreshing to hear a number of Hampden residents, mainly daily and Saturday riders, eloquently describe what that service means for them.
Few of the speakers owned cars, some being too impaired to drive, especially in bad weather, or are not eligible for a driver’s license. Many work at low-paying jobs and rely on the Saturday bus to get to work, do their weekly shopping, especially for groceries, or go to a laundromat and other service facilities. Every person in those categories described how they would be hurt severely if the Saturday service was discontinued.
A taxi, which would cost between $10 and $20 one way, is not an option for many.
Hampden’s town budget is about $6 million this year. Saturday bus service costs the town about $16,000 annually. I estimate the yearly cost to the average property taxpayer to range from between $1 and $3. Yet Hampden Town Council voted 4 to 3 to discontinue the service.
Three of the four councilors who voted to discontinue the bus service — Carol Duprey, Terry McAvoy and William Shakespeare — prefaced their vote by saying they would never want to do anything that would hurt a Hampden resident. Then they voted to do harm to an untold number of Hampden residents.
Clyde MacDonald
Hampden
Why raise the wage?
Arguments against raising the minimum wage seem to be based on one of three principles: that it’s “not intended to be lived on,” that people should “pull themselves up” and that “businesses will be forced out.”
The purpose of the minimum was economic stability and protecting workers with a minimum living standard. In 1968, one wage-earner could support a family of three. Yet that can’t keep two people above the poverty line today. If a business can’t afford to pay for the workers it needs to produce, is it really a viable business?
From 1973 to 2011 American productivity grew 80 percent, while hourly wages grew only 10 percent. In 1978, the average CEO took home 26 times what average workers made. Today they take home 206 times what the average worker makes. Workers are doing much more and higher quality work for a much smaller slice of the pie.
Graduates followed the advice that a degree is key, met the challenging financial barriers and will be paying off loans for years while reading how the Federal Reserve has decided to keep interest rates it offers to banks at zero percent. Many are working one or more of the plentiful low-paying jobs.
Minimum-wage workers are a huge and growing element of society. Debase them and try to keep them below the poverty level, and eventually people will start bending and breaking the rules like the big guys. Human beings don’t just stay down for that kind of oppression.
Mike Curtis
Orono
Supreme Court crisis
Once again, we are experiencing the judicial overreach of the U.S. Supreme Court. A concurrent concern is that any semblance of the court’s neutrality in the same-sex marriage ruling was demolished by the presence of two justices at same-sex marriage ceremonies before the ruling. Had they properly recused themselves, this ruling would not have passed.
The politicization of the Supreme Court, which, the founders were concerned about, I believe, was to be avoided by giving life tenure to justices. This enabled them to stay above the political fray and soberly ascertain the constitutionality of the laws of the several states — this is interpretation, not legislation. They have voluntarily abandoned that protection. Let’s remove life tenancy. This action creates a constitutional crisis in which everyone loses.
This questionable ruling on same-sex marriage opens the door to further activist harassment, discrimination, legal damages and loss of civil rights on the part of those who do have constitutionally defined and proper protection. People need to have the right to disagree protected. That means to not be punished for holding different views and values. Liberty is the entitlement of all, not just the privileged few or those who have an agenda to redefine the law and legislative process. This ruling makes national and state legislatures redundant.
Samuel Richards
East Winthrop