THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, September 5, 1994 TAG: 9409020010
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A8 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Letter
LENGTH: Short : 41 lines
Apparently many - possibly most - of your correspondents are conservative and detest liberalism.
True, liberalism has a number of sins to answer for, but most of the safety net that makes life a little less hazardous economically for the average American was put in place by liberals.
How many middle-class conservatives want to do away with Social Security, unemployment insurance, federal assistance for college students, government-guaranteed housing loans, deposit insurance and government supervision of the sale of stocks, bonds and mutual funds?
How many conservative hourly workers want to do away with the laws that provide for a 40-hour week with time and a half for overtime?
How many conservative tobacco and peanut farmers want to do away with government-established production quotas and support prices for their crops?
All of these programs were part of the liberal agenda passed during Franklin Roosevelt's administrations.
More recent liberal programs have included Medicare, Medicaid which supports thousands of the elderly in nursing homes, Social Security disability and government guarantees of private pension plans. How many middle-class conservatives who benefit from any of these or have close relatives who do want to have these benefits ended?
Liberals have made serious mistakes and miscalculations, but without the laws they have put on the books, life today would be far grimmer for the typical American. And many, many of the people who have made it upward into the middle class in the past 50 years have done so with the help of liberal-initiated programs.
E. SPENCER WISE
Virginia Beach, Aug. 24, 1994 by CNB