Finally, good riddance to Hall Income tax
It is with great delight that the death of the Tennessee state Hall Income Tax is now official after being on a pseudo-life support system for six years.
On the April 16, 2014, opinion page of the Free Press, then-Sen. Mark Green wrote a commentary, "Ditch The Hall Income Tax," which I feel was the start of the final push to retire this most unfair and unfavorable "income tax" that targeted most retired workers who had invested for retirement income.
Myself and others wrote to the editor also expressing our frustration that older Tennesseans were being treated unfairly.
That said, celebration time is here and now. Tennessee can honestly claim that our state is truly a "no income tax state." Hallelujah!
Bill Gallagher
Signal Mountain
Ridiculing cognitive skills reveals critics' ignorance
I am increasingly weary of tweets and other postings by individuals whose "diagnoses" of President Joe Biden's cognitive skills prove nothing more than their ignorance.
In a recent Sunday Perspective section, The Rant included two postings: one began: "I am the great and once cognizant Joe Biden ", and continued with an inane allusion to The Wizard of Oz. Another claimed he has watched "President Biden totter around "
Then there was recent Free Press commentary by Ron Hart, topped with an insulting headline - "Dazed and Confused: Biden's First 50 Days."
Hart presents himself as a satirist but he's unaware that satire is best used sparingly, lest it becomes buffoonery. He could not resist a suggestion that the president is addled, helped by handlers who use a teleprompter to "feed him his lines. He has this strained look as if he is confused or just had an accident."
Yeah. So "confused" that he defeated the previous president by more than seven million votes and his administration's vaccination program is successfully way ahead of schedule.
There are doubtless many people here who have lost a parent, sibling or spouse to complications of dementia - in my case, it was my father - and who are also pained by Biden critics who use a serious medical issue as a political weapon.
Michael Loftin
You can bet transgender athletes will be an issue
A recent Ranter questioned why the issue of transgendered female student athletes was suddenly a "hot potato."
Please remember that two years ago, COVID was unknown to us, and a year ago, not very many people had ever heard of George Floyd. Moreover, you better believe some pretextual agitator soon will want to press the issue.
My suggestion: Ask the current female students/athletes , especially those competing in individual sports, what they think. I will abide by that. Will you?
Claudos Spears
Young Harris, Georgia