EDITORIAL by Dhiren Shah
Hello Readers,
Do politicians protect Americans? In New York, there is a proposal to allow non-citizens to have voting rights. If it goes this way, the day will come that citizens will be in the minority and non-citizens will have all the rights, so they don’t need to become citizens. If they commit a crime, then the US government will just deport them. So, the US will become a haven for criminals. Some politicians are taking advantage of this and allowing more and more rights to undocumented US Citizens. This is really sad, but we are electing the same politicians over and over again by a landslide vote.
Congresspersons or US representatives have to run for reelection every two years, and I have noticed that once they are elected, they will be there for most of their life. Even Senators, whose elections are every 6 years, are there for life. There is no term limit like we have for the president, which is two terms, or 10 years in special circumstances. Also, we are spending millions of dollars on elections every two years, plus whatever the candidates collect in their fund is a part of the election. Why not to have an election every four years for the congresspersons and term limits on them and senators? If there’s a term limit, they might work for the people and stop playing politics.
New Jersey is not improving. The poverty line is a key source of my opinion. In 2019 about 800,000 New Jersey residents were under the poverty line according to the US Census Bureau. In 2021, according to Federal Government sources, it’s nearly 3 million. By a few different sources, for a family of 3 persons to live comfortably in New Jersey, the income needed is over $70,000 a year. Anyone under $70,000 for a family of 3 will count under the poverty line. More than one third of New Jerseyans are under the poverty line.
In Orange, the board of education hires police officers from the city of Orange and pay high dollars. The cost of the police officers hired by the board includes all the benefits police officers are receiving, and the calculation includes future retirement benefits they will receive. Orlando Soto, a retired police officer from Orange, had a very good suggestion. Once the police officers retire, they have a vast knowledge of handling the job and understanding of the community where they served as police officers. Many of them retired at a young age. So rather than paying top dollars, the board of education can directly hire retired police officers and save money. This could be possible only with the full cooperation of the mayor, the administration and the police department. If the police department and mayor support this and propose it to the board of education, they will save hundreds of thousands of dollars every year.
As I mentioned last week in my editorial, I am fully vaccinated, including a booster shot. However, I still have doubt as to political motives. In October or November 2020, the vaccination ratio was 0 and the confirmed COVID-19 cases were about 100,000 cases per day. In February 2021 there were about 220,000 cases per day. Since the vaccines got emergency approval in December 2020, the government and hospitals and medical industry are pushing for vaccinations. Today, around 70 percent are vaccinated with at least one dose.
In the beginning, President Biden was stating that once we get 70% people vaccinated, the virus will run away. Now after 70% of vaccination, we should have less than 70% new cases. However, in the past week there are about 100,000 cases per day in the US. If 70% of the cases are there, mathematically it should be 30,000 cases per day. It is not easy to adopt everything the politicians and the pharmaceutical industry say. The cost of the vaccination is another issue, I will tell my opinion later.
Have a wonderful week.
I’ll talk to you next week.
