Invest in child health

When the world can come together in less than a year to create effective treatments and vaccines for a deadly novel virus, there is no excuse for children dying of preventable, treatable conditions like malnutrition or diarrhea. Yet globally in 2022, 4.9 million children under the age of 5 died of largely preventable causes. That’s more than the city populations of Houston and Phoenix combined.

This gut-wrenching problem might feel overwhelming and impossible, especially in the face of partisan rancor in our government. But it does not have to be this way. If we can agree on anything, it’s that kids should not have to suffer from things we can easily prevent.

Right now, as Congress and the Biden Administration engage in high-stakes budget negotiations, I urge our lawmakers to boost funding for global child health in their latest spending bills, to make sure more kids have access to good nutrition, lifesaving vaccines, and more. The US was once instrumental in prioritizing child survival around the globe. It’s time to step up again.

William Deignan

Medford

Trump charges

Some questions regarding these charges: Who entered these checks into a ledger? Was there an invoice and were these 34 entries from one invoice and payments prorated?

Usually if a company or person that seeks millions in loans for a business or personal loan they have their books audited by a CPA and certified.  Was this done in President Trump’s case and if so why wasn’t this error picked up?  And did these jurors see any of these entries etc.?
Usually a president or CEO of a company or companies does not do any of these bookkeeping actions. Also if an invoice or invoices issued they say what the charges are for.

Dotty Fahey

Milton

Carr on point

It is relatively rare that I, a libertarian-leaning liberal (not a “progressive”) agree with conservative Herald columnist Howie Carr. However, his column on Sunday, June 2, is one of those occasions.

Carr quotes the great Robert H. Jackson, who went on from being the U. S. Attorney General to one of the greatest justices in the history of the Supreme Court. That very quote, boiled down to its essentials, posits that a federal prosecutor can indict the proverbial ham sandwich because of the nature of the federal criminal code. This argument is at the heart of my book “Three Felonies a Day: How he Feds Target the Innocent.” My thesis is that the manner in which the federal criminal code is constructed has produced a monstrosity that even lawyers and judges don’t understand.

Harvey Silverglate

Cambridge

Trump tax cuts

Stephen Moore’s listed five strong reasons why Trump’s tax cuts should become permanent.  If you earn under $400,000, a typical family of four will pay $1,500 more in taxes annually. The big lie is that the cuts favored the rich.  No, they didn’t. The richest 1% saw their total income taxes rise from 40% to 46%.  Finally, say goodbye to the standard deduction of $25,000 under Trump’s tax plan. Biden wants to revert back to the $12,500 standard deduction.  Why would anyone want to vote for higher taxes?

Donald Houghton

Quincy