Hospital exec salaries deprive nurses, patients
Manhattan: “The real reason behind New York’s nurses strike” (op-ed, Jan. 16) was on the money. I had to go to the emergency room at a large hospital because of an asthma attack. I needed an extra shot of epinephrine to breathe properly because I wasn’t monitored properly. The one nurse on duty had so many patients to monitor that I must’ve slipped under the radar. Nurses are right to demand safe staffing levels. It’ll cost money, but lives are at stake.
A solution is to tax these giant, private nonprofit hospitals with their CEOs and other high-level staff getting multi-million-dollar salaries where nurses are striking. These institutions make vast amounts of money from rich donors and Cadillac insurance plans, but they pay no income or property taxes. Research from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health found that nearly one-quarter of nonprofit hospitals receive more in tax exemptions than they provide in community services. New taxes and reducing CEO salaries can generate the money to pay for more nurses! If the heads of smaller community safety net hospitals and public hospital system CEOs can live comfortably while not making anything close to what administrators of large institutions make, it can be done. A decade ago, Assemblywoman Deborah Glick authored legislation in Albany that would have limited the salaries of hospital empires’ CEOs. It went nowhere thanks to them using millions of dollars to lobby against it.
Finally, these nurses deserve a living wage. With President Trump’s administration reclassifying nurses as no longer being professionals, their salaries have become a target. Recruitment of nurses would be easier if they were paid better. Ralph Palladino
Nuclear is no boon
Brooklyn: If you ever hear Gov. Hochul mention the four additional gigawatts of nuclear power she wants to see developed in New York, remind her that nuclear power carries deadly costs. It’s astronomically expensive, both to construct ($80-plus billion) and in ratepayers’ monthly bills. It’s molasses-slow to get going (Georgia’s latest just came in 15 years late). And while we’re waiting, toxic fossil fuels pollute our air. When it’s finally up and running, nuclear power produces endlessly dangerous radioactive waste. Clean? None of these deadly costs is incurred by solar- or wind-sourced energy. In the 21st century, we can have safe and clean energy and pay less for it, too. Laurel Tumarkin
Dirty deals
Bronx: To Voicer Wendy Jackson: The offers for a Palestinian state were rejected because the offers sucked. Richie Nagan
Say cheese properly
Commack, L.I.: I was amused to see “The Argyle Sweater” comic strip on Monday refer to a popular Dutch cheese as being pronounced “gooda.” Gouda cheese hails from the city of Gouda in the Netherlands, and both are correctly pronounced “Gowda.” Just like the English words “loud,” “proud” and “out,” the vowel combination of “ou” is pronounced the same way in Dutch, not “oo” as in boutique, which is French. Starbucks, which prides itself on authentically presenting items on its menus, has long continued mispronouncing Gouda cheese as gooda. And surprisingly, so has cuisine queen Martha Stewart. Imagine if Americans pronounced the popular Italian flat pie called pizza as “piz-zah,” or the French delicacy foie gras as “foy grass.” We’d be laughed at and called ignorant boors! Yvonne Fitzner
Valid denial
Scarsdale, N.Y.: To Voicer Mitch Kessler: It’s possible that the reason your ex-neighbor, although he looks Scandinavian, never got his citizenship after 25 years was related to his narcotics charge. Many illegal immigrants were denied citizenship due to past indiscretions and may be deported. I have an extra winter coat to keep him warm in his new digs in Texas. Please list his new address. Stephen Robinson
Reaction back-up
Petaluma, Calif.: I hope the wicked witch of “60 Minutes,” Bari Weiss, is not censoring viewers’ letters, as they haven’t read any on air for some time. I’ll be damned if she and her flying monkeys silence me about their Minneapolis story. Since “60 Minutes” has lost so much credibility over its CECOT detainee story, I’m sharing my response to the program as a fail-safe: “ICE Acting Executive Associate Director Marcos Charles had the unmitigated gall to tell viewers, ‘Become educated on what we do and how we do it.’ I suggest he have his masked thugs do the same. Some can’t read at an 8th-grade level. Some don’t know how to complete an open-book writing test. Some failed drug tests but were accepted anyway. And some are suspected of having participated in the Jan. 6 insurrection. I suggest he educate himself on the laws of the land.” Bob Canning
Bona fide dictator
Manhattan: Voicer Bradley Morris berates Voicer Fred Portoff for having conflated federal law enforcement with history’s most prolific dictatorships. Undoubtedly, Morris is a livid anti-Trumper, given Trump’s endorsement of a mob storming the Capitol in 2020 and ICE stormtroopers violating citizens’ rights today. Marc H. Lavietes
Cut them off
Manhattan: Even constituents who once supported stronger immigration policy are horrified by images of federal agents in military gear manhandling women and children. The Department of Homeland Security appropriations bill is coming up for a vote, and Democrats in the Senate — if Sen. Chuck Schumer does his job — have real power to place restrictions on ICE and Border Patrol before DHS funding runs out on Jan. 30. Senate Democrats better not cave again as they did in March and November, allowing Republicans to gut health care programs while tripling ICE’s budget. Democrats must draw a hard line: Not one more penny for DHS unless ICE stops targeting people by race and accent and forcibly collecting sweeps of people’s biometric data. Border Patrol needs to return to the border, and DHS must stop funneling money to the creation of new detention centers. Michelle Burke
Multiple fronts
Forest Hills: Won’t our military get stretched thin fighting simultaneous wars in Greenland and Minnesota? Alan Hirschberg
Another bluff
San Francisco: Well, the TACO king is at it again. Having spooked the markets once again, President Plump seems to be backing away from taking Greenland by force. Certainly, Europe is taking this with a grain of salt, as no one has any reason to believe His Fatitude when he speaks. His madman approach seems to not be working, as the EU seems steadfast against him (while here at home, President Gordo’s madness is still very evident). It might be time for the re-release of Elton John’s “Madman Across the Water.” Jimmy Layton
Hollow trophies
Windsor, Calif.: Four-year-old tee ball kids are full of pride when getting their end-of-season participation medal. They’re too young to understand that the medals are pretty meaningless, given every kid on the team gets one. Like them, our 79-year-old president is stuck in a euphoric tee ball world. Last year, Trump expressed glee when he was awarded the “FIFA Peace Prize.” There has never been a soccer peace prize until Trump got his. More recently, María Corino Machado, the Venezuelan opposition leader, gave her Nobel Peace Prize to you know who! Let’s consider ourselves fortunate that our medal-seeking commander in chief is not a student of history. If he were, Trump would know about Idi Amin, the 1970s brutal dictator of Uganda. Amin had a penchant for strutting around in public wearing a military jacket full of flashy but unmerited awards. Shh, don’t tell him! Dan Schmitt
Plenty of wins
Peekskill, N.Y.: Why is Voicer Peter Sulzicki complaining about what the Giants are paying their new head coach John Harbaugh!? He griped that Harbaugh has only won one Super Bowl. There’s only been 15 coaches in NFL history who’ve won more than one, and 10 of those won two! Harbaugh’s 18-year record coaching the Ravens was 180-113 with multiple division titles and an average of 10 wins per season, drastically better than Giants coaches, i.e. Pat Shurmur, Joe Judge and Brian Daboll, to name three in the last nine seasons. In those nine years, the Giants have won 44 games, less than five per year! They’ve been worse than dreadful. Harbaugh should be massively welcomed by all fans of Big Blue! Steven Bevacqua
