THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, January 10, 1995 TAG: 9501100009
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A12 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Letter
LENGTH: Short : 40 lines
Your editorial page for Dec. 29 had me (and other folks like me) all over it.
In the editorial ``Savings at what cost?'' you mentioned the 16,000 state employees who will lose their jobs within the next three years due to budget cuts. That number joins the other hundreds of us who lost our jobs during the last ``round of budget cuts.'' My position was lopped off last June.
Yes, we are neighbors, friends and family members, but we are also Virginia taxpayers, mortgage payers, car-note payers and sources of support for our families.
For those of us hard-pressed to find full-time employment in this state's ever-shrinking economy (and I've been looking!), whatever would the governor have us do? Disappear? Apply for welfare - where we will get ``lopped off'' again? Move to other states taking our talents, taxes and abilities? Or wait for positions as guards in his new one-sided growth industry - prisons?
For those of us committed to the education, training and development of not only Virginia's but the nation's future leaders, our livelihoods and commitment have been cut off, dismissed and shut down as unnecessary and lacking value (see ``State elegantly degrades education,'' Another View, Dec. 29).
If Governor Allen and his Republican ``new power brokers'' seriously believe that this approach will create a better Virginia, then they are really in for a shock. Those 16,000 plus the rest of us are also V-O-T-E-R-S. They may be suffering from amnesia while still riding the crest of a ``new wave,'' but I can guarantee the legislature has not and cannot afford to forget us.
BILLIE MONTGOMERY COOK
Portsmouth, Dec. 30, 1994 by CNB