Immigration issues
Sound the alarm
Regarding “Protect immigrants” (Editorial, June 20): I have been quite distressed about many of Trump’s actions and inactions, but none more than his attack on peaceful, law-abiding immigrant families. It is immoral. It is horrible. It is embarrassing. Makes me feel dirty.
Trump’s actions against immigrant families are particularly distressing because the drop in the immigrant population in Harris County hurts all of us, as aptly stated in the article on Page One of today’s Chronicle.
Thank you for having the courage to speak out and for not letting Trump bully you into silence! Keep up the great work!
A. Keith McFarland, Houston
Trump forces action
Regarding “Protect immigrants” (Editorial, June 20): The editorial decrying the prospect of mass deportation of illegal immigrants makes a valid and obvious point that our nation has long needed a comprehensive overhaul of our immigration laws, but you got off track when you laid the blame at the feet of President Trump.
If Trump were not forcing Americans — including those in Congress — to pay attention to immigration issues, then we’d simply be continuing the failed policies of the last several decades with semiopen borders and a blind eye toward businesses hiring illegals at sub-standard wages in lieu of hiring American citizens.
Drastic action such as Trump’s mass deportation orders are our best chance to get Congress to take action.
Greg Groh, Spring
Judging likability
Regarding “Yeah, but is she ‘likeable’? (Outlook, June 16): I enjoyed Jennifer Latson’s essay. In it she reviewed some of the research on how competent women and men are perceived. I’d like to point out that such research has a long history.
Almost a half century ago, when I was a graduate student in psychology at the University of Texas at Austin, Janet Taylor Spence (my mentor and a pioneer in a number of areas of psychological research, including gender roles) and her colleague Robert Helmreich published an article in the Journal of Applied Social Psychology entitled “Who Likes Competent Women?” That was in 1972, and I am more than a little bit annoyed that after 47 years, the likability of competent women (but not competent men) is still an issue.
Joy Stapp, Houston
Native Americans
Regarding “Jackson Lee pushes for slavery reparations” (City/State, June 20): Reparations will not change history, just like the removal of Confederate monuments will not change history.
If reparations are to be considered, the first to get them should be Native Americans. We actually stole this land from them, then we rounded them up like animals and exiled them to reservations.
Mike Smyth, Katy
It’s still voodoo economics
Regarding “Economist Laffer receives Presidential Medal of Freedom” (Newsmakers, June 20): The story reports the anointing of the author of the death knell of the post-World War II American middle class’s rise in purchasing power.
The current income disparity, higher even than in the Roaring ’20s, began with Ronald Reagan’s autocratic breaking of the air-trafic controllers strike, which permanently weakened organized labor’s bargaining power. Then came the tax cut for the rich based on Laffer’s trickle-down economics, which the late George H.W. Bush famously and correctly termed “voodoo economics.”
The George W. Bush tax cut for the rich ensued, which led to The Great Recession, and now the Trump tax cut for the rich similarly widens the income gap. The Trump tax cut is fading into a weakening economy as well, as middle class purchasing power is again relatively weakened.
Britt D. Davis, Katy