Learn your history, Mr. President. The White House was never meant to be a palace | Opinion

The People’s Palace?

The White House is the people’s house, not a king’s palace. Our founders understood that its design would shape how citizens saw their government and their country. They insisted it be plain and simple — no gilded halls — because the president was to be a servant of the people, not an aristocrat.

The Rose Garden, modest in scale, was one of the White House’s most precious spaces — human in size, simple in design and deeply symbolic. Now it is covered in opulent stone floors reminiscent of Mar-a-Lago. The White House is already 55,000 square feet — ample but not palatial — precisely because it was never meant to be.

Buildings endure; presidents pass through them. They hold our history, our values and our democratic ideals. President Trump’s renovations send a very different message — one that feels permanent, self-serving and antithetical to the standards that guided our founding. The White House reflects the president, and the president should reflect the people. This is more than a design choice — it’s a statement about the health (lack thereof) and future of our democracy.

Amaya Giauque

San Luis Obispo

Tracking nonprofits

Regarding: “Decades-old SLO County hospice nonprofit suddenly collapsed. What happened?”

Excellent reporting. Did the independent audit system fail here? Although perhaps not the job of financial auditors, it sounds like the Wilshire nonprofit structure may have been subject to multiple members of a single family being employed. Thirdly, this organization depends in part on volunteers, what justifies a salary of almost $500,000 per year for the top executive?

There are many, many other nonprofits in SLO county. It would be great if this type of analysis from publicly available records were done for other nonprofits that frequently partner with and provide services paid for by county and local governments before another such problem arises. Questions include: Top salaries for execs? Are their boards of directors truly and fully independent? Do the top officers employ their friends and relatives often and at what salaries? Is there a for-profit associated with the organization and does money flow between the two? What executive retirement pensions have been arranged or are pending?

Todd Katz

San Luis Obispo

You can’t put a price on democracy

Since the price tag for not countering Texas’ redistricting scam would be the end of our democracy, $200 million seems cheap. If it becomes necessary to take this route, we can always sue Texas to recover the cost.

John Sherwood

Topanga

Cuts are hurting kids

As a parent, grandparent and member of this community, I’m deeply alarmed by the relentless cuts to our public school funding.

I think Medicaid provides essential services in schools, from nurses to mental health support to speech therapy, and SNAP eligibility is tied to free school meals — cutting it means more hungry kids. Cuts to these programs for children and families are being made to give tax breaks to billionaires and to pay for separating families, human rights abuses and terrifying hardworking immigrants — people essential to our community.

Every child deserves access to a high-quality, inclusive education. Our nation needs a safe and orderly immigration process that balances compassion and security — not cuts to healthcare and schools and not cruelty.

Lorraine Kitman

Arroyo Grande

Protect science

Today our nation has more tools than ever to discover the truth about our planet and human behavior. We have excellent scientists in every field. The research they do helps improve the lives of people across the world. Yet these dedicated and talented climate scientists, history teachers, medical researchers, meteorologists and economic statisticians are being canceled because their findings are not to our liking.

Canceling the messenger for telling the truth about the impacts of human behavior on our environment is our biggest weakness. Only when we face the truth and heed its warnings can we be a strong country. A strong country does not hide from the truth, it acknowledges it. We must support research, science, history and the messengers who are telling us the truth. We cannot stand by and let them be canceled. We must stand up for truth.

Maggie W. Kraft

San Luis Obispo

Watch your language, Trib

We were saddened to read the term “pregnant people” in a Tribune article about how Donald Trump’s cuts may impact residents covered by Medicaid.

It referred to services for “pregnant people.” Crazy! We know the author meant well, but this is the kind of language that helped Trump get elected. This is the kind of language that got us a government that cuts services for our neediest people. We have dear friends who are LGBTQ. This language does not help them

Every day we think of the dear, hardworking people we know, who are desperate to provide for their families. Some of them, like Jesus, Mary and Joseph, had to flee to another country in fear of their lives and now are grabbed off the streets. The veterans whose mental health services have been cut back. And on and on.

We do not build the Beloved Community with unnecessary and provocative language. Liz and Dan Krieger

San Luis Obispo

Misleading article on solar subsidies

I am writing in response to the July 25th Heritage Foundation opinion piece, “Let the Market Decide — The Wisdom of Ending Wind and Solar Subsidies.”

The misleading piece omits critical facts and conveniently doesn’t suggest ending subsidies for fossil fuels (recently equal to $750 billion per year in the US, according to the World Bank). That figure doesn’t consider the no-cost dumping of greenhouse gases into our atmosphere, which science tells us will ultimately result in an unlivable planet.

They fail to mention that wind turbines and farms successfully occupy the same land and that wind energy is the least expensive and cleanest form of energy available to society. They do not consider the appreciable contribution of roof-top solar energy that takes up no new land. The Heritage Foundation seems determined that our kids and grandkids will inherit an unlivable earth, all in the name of unfettered and subsidized fossil fuel exploitation. Why do we give these luddites a platform?

Dean Thomas

San Luis Obispo