Letters to the Editor: July 11, 2025

The true picture

Open letter to Social Security Administration Commissioner Frank Bisignano:

Poverty does not equate with stupidity, Mr. Bisignano. Those of us living chiefly on Social Security are not fooled by your e-mail applauding passage of the “Big Beautiful Bill” because it “ensures that Social Security beneficiaries will no longer pay federal income taxes on their benefits.”

We are perfectly aware that those of us living on Social Security have never paid federal tax on those benefits unless we had considerable income from some other source. We are also aware that the bill will mean further hardship for many of us.

It is possible to live in moderate comfort, if frugally, on Social Security — if you have a mortgage-free house and a paid-for car, and earn the Social Security maximum. But many of us rely entirely on Social Security, also require other benefits that this bill eliminates so money can be transferred to those who need it far less.

The bill also increases our anxiety over climate change and wastes vast amounts on border security measures that are unlikely to have any effect, other than putting our democracy in jeopardy.

A simple, informative, accurate notification of benefit changes, like those traditionally sent by the Social Security Administration, will continue to be welcome. This political propagandizing is not.

Poor doesn’t mean stupid.

Margaret Bengry

Yamhill

Time to step up

I would like to offer a quote from John Adams, the second president of the United States, who played a crucial role in the American Revolution. He wrote these words on April 26, 1777:

“You will never know how much it cost the present generation to preserve your freedom! I hope you will make good use of it.”

Our homeland is under attack from within. We must step up to preserve what so many of our fellow Americans have died protecting.

Joan Buccino

McMinnville

Greed meets cowardice

I experienced Independence Day 2025 with mixed emotions.

This is the day when America celebrates the bravery and sacrifice of courageous patriots who risked everything to bring forth our nation. Yet on this July 4, we found ourselves in an America we hardly recognize.

Today we live in an America where a wannabe emperor and his sycophants are now writing our future. It is an America where too many in Congress are cowards and self-dealers who place personal aspiration and greed above obligation to constituents.

Passage of the “big, beautiful bill,” with all of its cruel, ugly provisions, tells us everything about what America is becoming. While many in Congress privately acknowledge the horrors this bill will inflict on Medicaid and Medicare recipients, not to mention those without health insurance, thanks to trillions in cuts, they still voted to pass Donald Trump’s most despicable invention yet.

Recently, Sen. Lisa Murkowski bragged about her ethical independence. Then she cavalierly traded that virtue for favorable cut-outs for Alaska.

In one vote, she betrayed her own stated values in exchange for some goodies for her constituents. And sadly, she was not alone.

We have a Congress where too many tremble at the prospect of Trump’s wrath. They prize their own power and access over thoughtful and inclusive decisionmaking designed to benefit the meek as well as the mighty.

So it was with these thoughts that I greeted July 4, 2025 — a catastrophic moment in history where courage is perishing, cowardice is reigning and avarice abounds. I fear the nation for which all those brave souls sacrificed so much may soon no longer exist.

Unless we decisively vote out Trump’s disciples and enablers, he will remain free to turn our beloved home into a private domain, serving only himself and his wealthy, entitled cronies.

Erma Vasquez

McMinnville

ICE on the loose

This summer, millions of Americans will be staying inside to avoid the sun.

They will be doing so not because of the risk of skin cancer, but the fear of being detained by ICE agents for having brown skin.

Stuart Gunness

Sheridan

Who voted for this?

Trump 45’s actions separating migrant children from their parents appeared to represent cruelty by design, as a deterrent to more migrants bringing children. In Trump 47, it was become clear that cruelty is actually an underlying theme to almost everything he does.

It started with DOGE laying off of thousands of federal employees, terminating or weakening agencies that predict and respond to weather and natural disasters, and defunding USAID’s programs to stop the spread of infectious diseases, enhance maternity care and assist in the prevention of hunger and starvation.

Among USAID’s most successful programs was George W Bush’s 22-year-old PEPFAR anti-AIDS initiative, which served to save millions of lives. Now it’s virtually gone.

Trump’s “Big, Beautiful Bill” will extend the cruelty to U.S. citizens who will lose their health care coverage through Medicaid.

Thousands of severely disabled children who survive only because of medical devices supplied by Medicaid will almost certainly die, and thousands of others will lose basic health care access. Hospitals relying on Medicaid funding will close.

Reduction in funding for SNAP will result in millions losing food support, thus going hungry. Last year an average of 750,000 Oregonians received monthly benefits.

Increased funding to support immigrant detention and removal totals approximately $170 billion.

If you thought child separation was cruel, keep watch on what’s coming. Cruelty by the Trump Administration was expected, but for the Supreme Court to join in is astounding.

First, it disabused trans children by making their treatment illegal. Then it cleared a path for deportation of eight individuals to South Sudan, only one with history there.

Earlier this year, the State Department issued its highest Level 4 travel advisory for South Sudan — “Do Not Travel.”

Is it not cruelty to dump men from Cuba, Laos, Mexico, Myanmar and Vietnam into this war-torn country? Who voted for this?

Les Howsden

Amity

Secret police

Opponents of the Republican “Big Beautiful Bill,” which became law last week, have focused on cuts to Medicaid and the way the BBB transfers wealth from the poorest Americans to the richest.

While these are important criticisms, we should not overlook how the BBB empowers ICE, turning it into a powerful secret police force.

ICE, which stands for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, was created by Congress in 2002, following the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Congress intentionally gave it strong civil and criminal authority to investigate threats to national security and public safety, focusing on trans-national criminals and illegal immigrants.

The current budget for ICE is approximately $8.7 billion. The BBB ups that sum by $75 billion over the next five years, increasing detention alone by a whopping 800%, to $45 billion.

Every scary thing you hear about ICE is legal.

ICE agents can mask up, dress in plain clothes, carry weapons and arrest without warrants. They are not required to wear body cameras or identification badges, or to use marked vehicles.

ICE agents do not have to identify themselves or follow local rules governing police conduct. They may even arrest US citizens they see breaking the law.

Earlier this week, ICE entered an immigrant neighborhood in L.A. unannounced, on horseback, with armored Humvees and dozens of armed soldiers, but no obvious objective or coordination with city officials.

Unless Congress acts to curb these powers, ICE can be deployed for any purpose the president deems a threat to national security.

When these powers are coupled with the president’s campaigns against birthright citizenship, permanent residency and naturalization, very few of us will be safe from arrest, detention and deportation. And given the president’s refusal to honor due process, we will have very little opportunity to object.

Susan Watkins

McMinnville

The Mad King

Our Mad King is well on his way to securing tenure for life.

Democrats in Congress are starting to find their way. But Republicans in Congress are starting to warm to the idea they may never need to stand for election again.

The federal judiciary has been ignored, lied to and assaulted by the DOJ, and is now hobbled by the Supreme Court. Masked secret police are jumping students and workers on the street and in the fields.

Our military is engaged in dress rehearsals to quell the disturbances that will follow when the Mad King openly rescinds his oath to protect and defend the Constitution.

Until 2025, America was a world leader in science, technology, medicine, education, business, finance and civil governance. While certainly flawed, it was admired and respected around the world.

Now America is an international laughingstock. It has a game show host at the helm, busily merchandising his office while he betrays the ordinary folk he championed last November.

By the terms of his BBB — his self-aggrandizing “Big Beautiful Bill” — our Mad King wants underclass Americans to be fearful, impoverished, unhealthy, uneducated, desperate, clueless, obedient and white. He wants them to be gullible suckers who will buy the con and be grateful to the crumbs billionaires drop.

His Project 225 is alive and well. It will hasten destruction of our economy and way of life.

We need to stop this nonsense.

Do not accept the false narrative of fear and hate touted by the Mad King. Tell all your friends by whatever means available that we need to stop this in its tracks.

You may be their only news source, aside from their smartphone, and they may trust you over that noise.

Be persistent. Trump’s 1.6% “mandate” does not warrant an overhaul of our society.

Bill Johnson

McMinnville