Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, January 5, 1995 TAG: 9501070077
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A10 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
My husband and I have delivered Meals on Wheels at least once a week for more than 17 years, and we see the need.
There are 18 people on our route. They're elderly - in their 80s and 90s - handicapped, and extremely needy. Some have only one leg and are in wheelchairs. One had a stroke that left her with a useless arm and she walks sideways with a hopping gait. Another is tethered to an oxygen tank and very limited in her movements. Two have severe arthritis. Three are bedridden. A couple, the poorest of the poor, keep their front door open in anticipation of their hot meal. There's a 94-year-old man whose wife died this year; an 84-year-old woman, blind and almost deaf; and the list goes on.
I've opened refrigerator doors in their homes and found only half a jar of peanut butter, and nothing but a box of macaroni in the cabinet.
These aren't isolated cases. We've delivered other routes, and the story is the same. I have three sisters who also deliver meals once a week, and they see the desperate need of these people.
I challenge Gov. Allen to not make this decision from the governor's mansion, but to deliver meals just one time - and then decide which ones could do without the food.
PAT WARE ROANOKE
Teachers deserve hefty pay increases
AFTER reading the Dec. 31 news story ``Director hits pay jackpot,'' my blood pressure probably hit an all-time high! Nearly every day I read with dismay and disgust that Gov. Allen is up to another anti-Robin Hood trick, i.e., taking from the needy and deserving and giving to the already well-heeled, prosperous Cabinet members and others in assorted posts he fills with his friends.
Why is Penelope Kyle, the state's lottery director, given a 22 percent (proposed ) pay raise to the paltry sum of $113,558 when hard-working, veteran teachers with more than 30 years service to this state receive less than one-third this amount? I'm appalled at the inequities in pay between educators and those in governmental positions, at federal and state levels.
I don't care how many employees are under Kyle's supervision - there's no way she can expend the time and energy that educators do year in, year out! If this proposed raise would ``not even be close'' to what she earned in her job with CSX, why would she leave such a lucrative position? She probably was promised a tax break by the Republicans in Washington if she earns more than $100,000. She can then invest more and get her capital-gains tax cut, too.
Every year educators' salary committees work long and hard trying to get us a mere 2 percent, 3 percent, or even 31/2 percent raise, and Kyle deserves a 22 percent raise? Teachers are constantly bombarded with negative criticism because we can't work miracles - making silk purses from sow's ears. I don't know if we could achieve any more if we made $113,558 (or even $94,676, Kyle's current salary), but the overwhelming exhaustion that accompanies me home each day may seem less so as I collapse on the sofa with dollar signs dancing in my head.
FRAN DEEDS VINTON
Editor's note: Since this letter was written, the lottery director has turned down the 22 percent raise and said she will settle for a 2.25 percent pay boost that took effect Dec. 1.
Taxpayers' help should be limited
THIS IS ABOUT the recent stories (December series, ``The Welfare Web'') on welfare recipients:
The 24-year-old woman with the four kids by three different dads said her birth control failed. There's another kind of birth control. It's called keeping your pants on, abstinence or tubal-ligation surgery. How many more kids will she have for us to pay for?
Another woman only had one child, but she is still getting help, and she is in her late 30s. I have made mistakes, and have paid for them, and now we as taxpayers are paying for our own and everyone else's mistakes.
In one of the stories, the woman had a credit card that we are paying for, too. It's hard for some people to get a credit card, and they work. Also featured was a woman with three kids who is 49. You know, the one who won't take any job and graduated from Virginia Western. The one who sleeps all day and watches television.
I know people who work at two and three jobs to make it. By the way, I quit school in the ninth grade, but I got my high-school equivalency certificate, and I've worked my way up.
I don't mind helping people, but enough is enough. Still, it's not all the fault of the women in the stories. When you have a welfare system that keeps you comfortable and gives you enough money - more than minimum wage - then who wants to work? My advice to those women is to get a job, and quit having all these kids. I don't mind helping for two years, with child care and education.
TERESA DEWEESE ROANOKE
Allen's downsizing of state government
I AGREE with most in the two editorials (``A chance to gauge tax bucks' bang'' and ``Hitting Southwest Virginia'') and the letter to the editor (``Patients also deserve sympathy'' by Lyle Zimmer) in your Dec. 21 edition. I also agree that a possible future political campaign by Gov. Allen may be part of it. If so, I'm all for it.
All successful businesses have downsized, using improved methods, computers, etc. That's something all governments should be doing. Certainly, the federal government should.
I retired from a large company that had a division in Europe. That division downsized in the early '60s, was reduced by about 1,000 employees, and downsized again in the mid-'70s with about a 1,500 reduction in work force. Most governments expand annually, and more so when the economy and tax collections increase.
When taxes were cut in the early Reagan years, tax collections increased every year. Unfortunately, Congress authorized much larger increases in spending every year, creating enormous new debt. The tax growth slowed with the 1990 tax increase, but Congress' authorized new spending almost doubled what they overestimated the new tax would bring in.
Gov. Allen won't, and probably shouldn't, get all he's asking. But the new Republican Congress should follow his lead.
First, cut Social Security payroll deductions to a pay-as-you-go system, removing the surplus so all would know what the true deficit is. Health-care providers and patients are hurt when Medicare's funds are cut. Increase those collections if necessary. Then eliminate outdated, counterproductive and wasteful programs, agencies and departments and congressional committees.
All remaining agencies and departments should then be audited with a fine-tooth comb for waste and duplication, reducing staff to a proper level. Perhaps then we can have a surplus to apply to debt reduction. Should the surplus get too large, then cut taxes.
GEORGE F. SNYDER VINTON
Welfare recipients are the scapegoats
SHERRI MERTZ (Dec. 31 letter to the editor, ``Taxpayers resent the take and give'') and the guy who said he would cringe at me working as a social worker (Dec. 24 letter by Don L. Gardner, ``Recipient does not set good examples'') are believing the myth that most of their hard-earned money goes to support those of us whose poor judgment and irresponsible behavior are the main variables that lead us to the dole line.
Although it is true that about 40 percent of people's income goes to feed the government in the form of taxes, only 1 percent of the federal budget goes for programs that assist the poor (welfare), and only about 2 percent to 3 percent comes out of the state's total spending budget for such programs.
Politicians are propagating lies and distorting perceptions so that the struggling working class will continue to look down at those even poorer than they are, instead of looking up at those perpetuating poverty - the upper class. The upper class is producing poverty, and current politicians have been hired, it seems, to keep the focus off real issues and to cut programs (social and educational) that would help boost people out of poverty.
PAULA KIRTLEY ROANOKE
by CNB