Reader recommends reversing Commerce Department’s lumber tariffs and reducing exports

Reverse lumber tariffs

President Biden and his Administration should reverse the U.S. Department of Commerce’s decision on tariffs on softwood lumber imported from Canada. The decision increased tariffs up to an average of 17.9% from 8.99%. Softwoods like spruce and pine are heavily used in construction.

Lumber prices have increased significantly, adding about $30,000 to the cost of a new median priced single-family homes. These soaring prices are unsustainable since housing affordability has become more strained. If something is not done to address the cost of lumber, this will hurt the housing sector and the economy.

The following should also be done by the administration:

• Negotiate with Canada for a new, long-term softwood lumber agreement.

• Increase timber production from federally owned lands.

• Reduce U.S. lumber exports. Domestic producers are selling in other countries to increase profits. Lumber used in construction should remain in the U.S. while there is an unmet demand in the U.S.

• Identify new source markets and work with countries already exporting softwood lumber to the U.S. to increase their exports here.

Robert Dickson, Bluffton

DACA bills benefit all

The 2021 legislative session marked positive efforts to improve educational and job opportunities for South Carolina’s more than 5,500 Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients.

Heading into 2022, separate bills introduced by Sen. Brad Hutto, D-Orangeburg, and Rep. Neal Collins, R-Pickens, are poised for increased traction and hopeful passage. Respectively, the bills would grant college-going recipients in-state tuition and access to state-funded scholarships, and would allow access to professional licenses required for numerous jobs.

The state’s teacher vacancies nearly doubled during the pandemic.

As of 2021, South Carolina had the fourth-highest nursing shortage in the nation.

The need for social workers, in particular bilingual ones, is projected to increase dramatically in the next decade.

The proposed bills would improve pathways and certification opportunities for those seeking to educate, care for, and support our increasingly diverse citizenry.

Opening pathways for DACA recipients will also knock down barriers for a new wave of talent in a rapidly diversifying and increasingly ambiguous digital economy.

The bills sponsored by Sen. Hutto and Rep. Pickens would open the opportunity door for an important segment of our population.

In doing so, the bills would help fill critical vacancies, elevate the state’s economic viability, and enhance the quality of life for South Carolina’s DACA recipients and their communities.

Eric Skipper, provost, University of South Carolina-Beaufort

Anger control needed

Society’s current anger is a cancer on our democracy.

Stephen Webster’s book “American Rage” describes anger as the central emotion governing U.S. politics, lowering trust in government, weakening democratic values while forging partisan loyalty.

The Guardian’s “The Age Of Rage”(5/11/19) states that we have built a world that is extremely good at generating causes for anger but extremely bad at offering constructive solutions.

A Gallup poll found 22% of respondents around the world felt angry, a record.

In “Americans Are Living In A Big Anger Incubator” in The Washington Post we read that systematic forces threaten our well-being, led by automation, globalization, climate change, immigration, racism, a pandemic, and conspiracies while using social and news media as a catalyst.

Duke University School of Medicine Professor Damon Tweedy believes anger is inevitable and becomes a sustaining problem without the use of off-setting, coping tools.

Here are some anger management suggestions to counteract one’s anger, thus contributing to a kinder, gentler world (Psychology Today):

• Look at things from a third-person perspective.

• Refuse to react to aggressive acts.

• Understand where anger is coming from.

• Listen, take the other person’s point of view.

• Count to 10, take deep breaths.

• Above all, smile and forgive, life is too short!

Earle Everett, Hilton Head

Quit crowding the goldfish

Just how many goldfish can you put in a goldfish bowl before they either die or start eating each other?

I often asked myself that question when I was practicing as a professional engineer, land planner and consultant for large land developers.

I retired to the Lowcountry in 2007, and thought, if this wasn’t heaven, it had the same zip code.

Fast forward to 2021.

New apartments and condos: 500 here, 300 there.

In Bluffton, everything is approved. Bring it on.

So, people, enough, already! Shut and bar the doors before we start eating each other like the goldfish eventually do.

The next time our municipalities advertise to reset their master plans, and call for public comment, attend the meetings.

Don’t say, “No.” Say, “Hell, no!”

Help us live our remaining years in an uncrowded goldfish bowl in this little bit of heaven in the Lowcountry of South Carolina.

M. Brown McNally, Okatie