LETTERS: Sign bill to protect Illinois women’s reproductive rights

SHARE LETTERS: Sign bill to protect Illinois women’s reproductive rights
illinois_capitol.jpg

(AP Photo/Seth Perlman)

Gov. Bruce Rauner has helped the citizens of Illinois by signing three important bills. The automatic voter registration bill will increase voter rolls, not suppress them. The “trust” bill will help immigrants feel safer in our state. The education bill will help equalize funding for all school districts. Now, the governor needs to demonstrate that same helpfulness to the women in Illinois.

SEND LETTERS TO: letters@suntimes.com. Please include your neighborhood or hometown and a phone number for verification purposes.

Rauner should sign House Bill 40. In the event that the federal government or the Supreme Court overturns all or parts of Roe v. Wade, this bill states that Illinois women still will be able to make their own decisions about their reproductive rights. By signing this bill, Rauner will be saying that women in Illinois are smart enough to make their own life choices. When he ran for his first term, the governor said he was definitely “pro choice” with no “social agenda.”

Now in his second term campaign, Rauner has changed his position. While he still claims to be “pro choice,” he is not pro-choice for women on Medicaid or for those without insurance.

Gov. Rauner, please sign HB40 to show respect for ALL women in Illinois, not just for those with money.

Marjorie Rogasner, Evanston

A major boost to the economy

I write about “The Cost of Being a Chicagoan” (News story, Aug. 30).

Although there are storm clouds on the horizon due to state budget cuts of $94 million and no infrastructure bill out of Springfield in nearly nine years, a positive “cost” of living in Chicago is mass transit. With significantly improved service, the CTA has kept fares flat for the last eight years!

Moreover the Regional Transportation Authority has a solid credit rating with Wall Street, solvent retirement system for its employees and the lowest operating cost per passenger mile of any major transit system in America.

If regional residents “dump the pump” and switch the daily commute by car to public transportation, they each can save more than $11,000 a year, mitigating the costs of being a Chicagoan. Mass transit is a major reason Chicago led the nation in corporate relocations the last several years and is critical to attracting millennial generation workers to Chicagoland. Virtually no other region in America can boast these savings for our citizens while providing a major boost to our economy since where transit goes the economy grows.

Kirk W. Dillard​, chair,

Regional Transportation Authority

Displacing golfers

There more than 250 golf courses within an hour’s drive of Chicago. Several are, of course, country clubs, but most are public golf courses. The Chicago amateur for the past 30 years has been played at Jackson Park golf course. The only people who would benefit by combining Jackson Park and South Shore in a “high end” golf course would be the rich and, of course, the politicians decide to build the golf course.  It would displace hundreds of golfers who play Jackson Park.

Vincent Militante, Melrose Park

Remember the workers

They are all around us – do we  see them as people? Washing, scrubbing, sweeping, replacing, painting, taking apart and repairing — they keep our city working. Removing, digging, placing in, hoeing, spading, sweeping, weeding, watering — they keep our city beautiful. Waiting on us, stocking the shelves, taking orders, making sure the size is right — they help us to look good.

Some take orders and bring to our tables food and drink on plates that were washed carefully by unknown others. The food is planned and prepared before arriving by artists whose faces we may never see. Let us not forget the military, first responders and police to whom we turn in adversity.

So many — in clinics, garages, offices, homes, schools, shops of many kinds — they are those who labor, often unremarked by those of us whose lives are made better and brighter by their services. This Labor Day look around intently. Notice those who really do the day to day, often dreary but essential work that make our lives cleaner, easier, happier, by their labor. Celebrate Labor Day by celebrating their contributions to our city and world. And thank them through your perception of their service.

Ruth Hosek, Near North Side

Oppose COLA reduction

As a federal retiree who has served our country for years, I am deeply concerned with a provision in the president’s budget that would eliminate cost-of-living adjustments for current and future federal retirees. I ask that my representative and senators oppose any proposals.

The annual COLA provides protections against inflation, but even the current calculation is inadequate because it understates the impact of health care spending. This proposal would diminish the value of my hard-earned annuity by allowing inflation to erode the benefit over the course of my retirement.

With the cost of goods and medical care on the rise, I will not sit back and allow this attack to gain a foothold.

Joseph Ulie, Naperville


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