Tank funds must go to other items

5/14/2013
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Spending $436 million more on a tank that is not wanted or needed is a fiasco of the highest order, especially in times of federal budget austerity.

As your editorial reasonably suggests, lawmakers should redirect that expenditure to infrastructure or schools in Ohio. That would keep the money in Ohio for jobs that may be lost at the Lima tank plant.

If we are going to criticize unwise spending projects in other states, we cannot be hypocritical when an unnecessary pork barrel project is pushed in Ohio. Just because the tank is built in Ohio, that does not justify the expenditure.

R. GREGORY STEIN
Sylvania

College coaches are overpaid

The boards of trustees and presidents of colleges and universities in our nation apparently value football and football coaches far more than they value the President and the Vice President of the United States, whose responsibilities are infinitely greater than those of the coaches who are determined to have the best teams to satisfy alumni and the public.

David Clawson, the head football coach at Bowling Green State University, has an annual salary of $400,000, the same as President Obama’s (“Clawson’s salary jumps to $400,000,” March 2). Vice President Joe Biden’s annual salary is $225,540. With a base annual salary of $4 million, Urban Meyer, the head football coach at Ohio State University, is the highest-paid public employee in Ohio.

Collegiate athletics should enhance and not dominate academic values. It is appalling that trustees at our colleges and universities seemingly value athletics so much that they approve inordinate amounts of money for their coaches.

Their focus appears to be on winning games, rather than on upholding academic integrity.

WALLY PRETZER
Bowling Green
Editor’s note: The writer is a professor emeritus of English at BGSU.

Athletes pay OK; execs, not so much

The writer of the April 19 Readers’ Forum letter “Why don’t people rip athletes’ pay?” wonders why people are untroubled by the multimillion-dollar salaries of athletes. He uses Detroit Tigers pitcher Justin Verlander as an example, but criticizes the high pay of business executives.

I have seen Mr. Verlander and business executives. I am incapable of throwing a fastball or a physics-defying breaking ball like Mr. Verlander does. But I can yell at people, blame them for my mistakes, take credit for their successes, drive an expensive car, eat a large lunch, hobnob with crooked politicians, suck up corporate welfare, sexually harass and even suborn perjury from my underlings, just as the most highly paid business executive I have known.

Capitalism should reward the scarce and special. That’s Mr. Verlander. It should likewise permit executives who float golden parachutes and manipulate the political system to fail. But collaboration between chief executive officers and boards of directors keep that from happening.

CINDY LANGE
Perrysburg