Casino will bring debt, crime to Prince George’s Re: “P.G. panel approves slots ban,” Oct. 12
The ravages of predatory lending aside, Prince George’s stands as a proud example of African-American education and prosperity. However, a casino proposed for Fort Washington will prey upon county households by driving up debt and producing no collateral benefit for the community.
There will be no life-saving therapies as a health company might offer; no new roads as a construction company might build; and no groundbreaking technologies from a high-tech company.
Penn National smells an opportunity in Fort Washington and the surrounding communities of Temple Hills, Oxon Hill and Capitol Heights. Despite being the very epicenter of Maryland’s foreclosure crisis, Temple Hills and Capitol Heights are two of the top three gambling areas in Maryland as measured by lottery sales.
The research is clear: Those who buy lottery tickets also love to play slots. These four communities also represent over half of the murders committed so far this year in Prince George’s County. The last thing we need to deliver to those communities is more debt and crime by way of a casino.
Gerron S. Levi
Mitchellville
Defense cuts would leave America defenseless
Re: “Boehner says no more defense cuts,” Oct. 28
House Speaker John Boehner and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta agree that defense spending has been cut to the bone, but Congress may yet allow unprecedented cuts to devastate our national security because Democrats and Republicans can’t agree.
According to the debt ceiling deal, Congress must cut an additional $1.5 trillion from the budget by the end of the year. If it fails, an arcane legal process called “sequestration” will chop $600 billion more from the defense budget (in addition to the $450 billion in cuts already underway), hacking each and every military program by an equal amount.
The cuts would hit everything from armored vehicles for our troops to intelligence drones to catch terrorists. It would slash funding for U.S. ballistic missile defenses, which protect us today but need updating to stay ahead of Iran and North Korea.
If Congress allows political gridlock to cut such essential national security capabilities, the results could be catastrophic. Let’s hope Congress agrees on wise cuts to the budget instead of allowing the sequestration cuts — which Panetta called a “doomsday mechanism” — to wreck our national defense.
Thomas C. Pinckney, USAF
Alexandria
Cain’s biggest problem is being black conservative
Herman Cain, GOP candidate for president, is in the claws of sexual harassment accusations. First he did not know. Then he did know, but knew nothing about settlements. Now he knows about one settlement, but claims he doesn’t know the amount.
This is not over. Someone else will surface with additional allegations about Cain because the white forces in America want him out. They do not want another black president. And he is too conservative for blacks to support.
The opposition will continue to discredit Cain until he drops out of the race, the first casualty among the GOP hopefuls. His real sin: being a black conservative and a front-runner.
Louis Ginesi Dominguez
Warrenton, Va.
