ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, March 18, 1996 TAG: 9603180005
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-4 EDITION: METRO
TYPE: LETTERS
YOUR MARCH 4 editorial (``Expect more lives to be lost'') concerning Republican attempts to restrict or eliminate funding for international ``family planning'' organizations sets new records for absurdity. One wonders if your editorial writers actually believe some of the things they write.
The claim that there may be an additional 200,000 ``illegal, unsafe'' abortions as a result of funding cutbacks: Apparently, the absence of funding is what causes abortions to become illegal. In a twisted sense, the charge is valid, but only in the same sense that we could eliminate all crimes of theft by giving everyone an infinite amount of money.
The claim of ``500,000 births that would not have been, had women in developing countries had access to birth control'': Even if we grant the statistic - and there's no evidence given to support it - so what? By not sterilizing everyone on the planet, we're probably also contributing to millions of births that otherwise wouldn't have been. The underlying assumption here is that having children is a bad thing. It's precisely this anti-family prejudice that causes many to argue that these organizations shouldn't receive any public funding.
Next, there's the truly staggering claim that ``in denying women family-planning programs, `pro-life' advocates are ensuring unwanted pregnancies.'' Perhaps I missed a day during high-school biology, but I always thought that sexual intercourse caused unwanted pregnancies. Imagine my surprise to discover that it's actually the result of insufficient taxpayer dollars!
There's also the absurd statement that Congress and the president should ``kill the Smith amendment, and save lives.'' Twenty-five years and 30 million abortions after Roe. vs. Wade, the last thing that ``safe, legal'' abortion has done is protect lives. When it was first proposed, proponents of legalized abortion claimed that it would eliminate unwanted children, and reduce child abuse and poverty. Instead, it has made the taking of human life more acceptable and more frequent. We now have babies left to die in garbage cans, unspeakable cases of child abuse and neglect, and a higher poverty rate than before. Let's hope that the rest of the world doesn't buy the same fiction we've been told.
STEPHEN J. KONIG
ROANOKE
Allen departs from frugal management
DURING the last two years of the term of the last Democratic governor of Virginia, two national magazines rated Virginia as the state that had the best financial management. We were one of five states whose bonds were rated AAA by both national bond-rating agencies. Our taxes were the second-lowest in the country.
This recognition was earned by 12 years of Democratic governors and Democrat-controlled legislatures (but usually with bipartisan legislative support), during which the commonwealth used strict standards of careful management. One of these was to base its budgets on real, conservative estimates of state revenue. and not use the smoke and mirrors so often used in Washington by the Reagan and Bush administrations.
Republican Gov. George Allen has departed radically from the Virginia pattern of frugal management. Revenue estimates in his proposed budget included $67 million from two untried, highly speculative new lotteries - which he later decided not to pursue. That revenue, however, remained in his budget - as did $72 million from the sale of surplus state property, half of which he didn't identify. One piece he did identify for sale turned out to be the site for a prison for women, already under construction.
This isn't the type of management we're accustomed to and entitled to in Virginia. We made a mistake in electing Allen in 1993. Let's do better next year.
AUGUSTUS C. JOHNSON
SYRIA
Fire protection could come first
THE PROPOSED new Cave Spring High School building isn't the highest priority for the county. Just as food and water come before shelter, an adequate fire-protection system for all the county comes before a new high-school building.
A large area of the county has inadequate fire protection measured by any standard you want to use. The response times are too long, which is due to a system where most firehouses aren't manned on a 24-hour basis by paid firefighters. Instead, when a call comes, volunteers have to leave home or work, go to the firehouse, and then take the equipment to the fire. The result is to almost double the response time.
This isn't a complaint about the volunteers. I have the highest regard for those who freely give of their time to provide the protection we now have. My complaint is with the system.
The Board of Supervisors has stated that the county cannot afford to have a paid system and man all firehouses on a 24-hour basis. However, they now propose to spend $30 million-plus to build a new high school while they do nothing about the fire system. They want to build a 21st-century school building while we have an early-1900s fire-protection system.
This isn't about being for or against education, but rather about priorities.
GLENN BRANSCOM
ROANOKE COUNTY
AEP bought support for `monster'
IN RESPONSE to Bill Tanger's Feb. 15 letter to the editor, ``Let's be ready for the electric car'':
His letter promoting American Electric Power's proposed high-voltage power line left out a few things. He presents himself as a conservationist. I suppose people can call themselves anything they like, but that doesn't make it true.
Tanger has been hired by AEP to promote its interests. The organization he put together called the Coalition for Energy and Economic Revitalization is simply a front for AEP to fabricate an image of public support.
His claim that AEP's proposal is efficient is simply not true. There is a 10 percent line loss that is wasted by transporting electricity from Indiana to the East Coast market. Congressman Rick Boucher has indicated that there will be additional economic hardships on our communities as a result of approving this line instead of promoting local power generators using Virginia's coal reserves.
The Forest Service is in AEP's pocket, and there seems to be no stopping this ugly monster from cutting through our mountains with its cash-register towers. AEP has the money and the lawyers, but that doesn't make it right.
RICHARD ETTELSON
WAITEVILLE, W.VA.
Roanoke County is `skinning' taxpayers
THE PENDING school-bond referendum seems to be causing much dissension among various Roanoke County districts. I certainly appreciate the value of quality education, although I have no children now in school. However, the bond issue as presently drafted does appear a little tilted to one area. Possibly had more of the entire county's needs been included, it wouldn't appear that just a few crumbs have been thrown in to appease the electorate.
Further, do we need all the school buses when many run only half-full, and school parking lots seem to be filled with vehicles? Possibly fewer buses or a parking fee might assist in reducing the schools' operating costs, and the savings could be applied toward debt reduction. Presently, it seems that debt reduction is the sole responsibility of the homeowners and those with taxable personal property, without regard to the hardships of ever-increasing taxes.
Your March 12 news article (``N. County residents call school plan unfair'') attributes to Board of Supervisors Chairman Bob Johnson the following statement: ``If you want to divide this county, Roanoke city will pick you off like plucked chicken.'' The following tax rates in other counties indicate to me that we're not being plucked like a chicken, but skinned.
Chesterfield County: personal property, $3.60 per $100 of evaluation; real estate, $1.09 per $100 of evaluation.
Henrico County: personal property, $3.50 per $100 of evaluation; real estate, 98 cents per $100 of evaluation.
Could this possibly indicate a better utilization of funds and projects in those counties or that Roanoke County tries to do too much at taxpayers' expense?
JAMES C. MARTIN
VINTON
LENGTH: Long : 149 linesby CNB