ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1995, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, December 20, 1995 TAG: 9512200025
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-16 EDITION: METRO
TYPE: LETTER
REGARDING Rodman S. Moeller's Dec. 6 letter to the editor, ``Seniors must help pay the piper'':
He hits on the well-worn idea that seniors get benefits that ``far exceed our own contributions.'' I went to work in March 1939. My pay was 27 cents an hour. I paid my part on Social Security out of that 27 cents. How much does he expect we could pay in at that wage? I worked one full hour for that 27 cents, a fact senior-bashers overlook, including President Bill Clinton.
Where did the money go that I paid in? It went to pay those who retired before my generation, those who never paid a dime into the program. I worked 46 years paying big taxes of every kind. I want to remind Moeller that I'm still paying big taxes, though I've been retired 11 years. I paid to retire the generation before mine, paid for my own retirement and my generation's. Now I'm paying for the generation of retirees following mine.
Seniors must help pay the piper? This senior has already paid far more than any flute player ever earned. And as we get older, many of us need heart surgery and pacemakers, and face great medical costs.
I don't think any generation ever sacrificed more than mine, was ever more robbed out of our earnings and savings by taxes. And we still face huge taxes at death and our graves. Our children can expect to be robbed out of what we leave here.
Not long ago they wondered what they would ever do with all that money piled up in Social Security. Members of Congress found a way to blow it. They spent it, and replaced it with IOUs. Congress is to blame, not seniors. They robbed Social Security, then raised taxes on seniors' Social Security - pardon me, Social Insecurity. Much of it was given to foreigners and immigrants, who are encouraged to flood in here by the millions and get on welfare we struggle to pay for.
It's long past the time to stop beating up on American senior citizens and to jump on those who are really to blame - Congress and the presidency.
ELLIS J. CARTER
MARTINSVILLE
Broadway quality at Roanoke prices
IT SHOULD be known that I'm on the board of directors of Mill Mountain Theater, but the following opinion is my own.
Despite Katherine Reed's Dec. 2 review (``Fine acting, sets can't save this too-long musical''), the theater's production of ``She Loves Me'' shouldn't be missed. Not only is it just the kind of ``good feeling'' piece the holiday season needs, the music, direction, scenery, technical work and, most of all, the talent of the cast are of New York quality, and all for no more than $20 per ticket. When the theater turns out a production at this level, which it does more often than not, I wonder why there are ever any empty seats.
While her criticism of the play isn't shared by her colleagues in New York and London - where ``She Loves Me'' was critically acclaimed, won many awards and enjoyed long runs - her review is more deficient in its failure to give any relevance to the quality of the theater's production. That the theater delivered a ``terrific set and six terrific actors with wonderful voices'' wasn't enough for her. Unfortunately, what she found to be so terrific and wonderful is lost in the headline and takes a back seat to her disdain for the story.
This production has no less than four actors with Broadway credits and, in Richard Stafford, a director with an extensive international directing background and major Broadway choreography experience. I had the occasion to meet him, and he told me that Mill Mountain Theater's reputation in New York is among the very best in the country.
Reed's review should have at least given that quality equal time.
HOWARD J. BECK JR.
ROANOKE
Lake residents can pay their own way
I DISAGREE with the way taxpayers are being led to believe that they should be willing to pay for a water-treatment plant and a sewage-treatment plant for the people at Smith Mountain Lake.
For one good reason, these people have been said to have annual salaries of $65,000 a year. This is good, but why would they want people with annual salaries of $18,000 to $20,000 to pay for what they already knew wasn't there when they moved to the lake? They are all but controlling the three bordering counties with their likes and dislikes. If things are so bad on the lake now and was so much better where they came from, it looks like the dissatisfied ones would go back to where life is so much nicer, and where there is public water and sewage.
I don't think this is a matter for the supervisors or planning commission to have control of. The voters and taxpayers should decide if they want to pay this huge sum of money for the well-to-do residents of ``Rich People Pond.'' Those residents will never be satisfied, regardless of what they have. It will always be something else they want the less-than-middle class to pay for.
I for one have never asked anyone on the lake to pay my taxes or raise theirs. I do the best I can with what I have. Maybe some of them should try this. They would be surprised at what can be achieved.
ANDREW T. CUNDIFF
ROCKY MOUNT
LENGTH: Medium: 94 linesby CNB