THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, April 2, 1995 TAG: 9503310221
SECTION: SUFFOLK SUN PAGE: 06 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Letter
LENGTH: Medium: 58 lines
In ``Another View'' (The Virginian-Pilot, March 15) titled ``The Contract with America and Democracy,'' authors Ms. Piven and Ms. Everson point out that Republican policies would ``. . . wreck the capacity to tax, spend and regulate.''
Also, once the Republican changes are in place, ``. . . the federal government will be far less able to do what contemporary democratic governments do - stabilize the economy and curb business practices that harm communities.''
From my personal experience, I have two examples concerning Big Business and the federal bureaucracy.
The first example concerns Big Business. In 1994, as I drove home from work, I noticed a truck owned by a large local business doing something that I did not feel was environmentally friendly. That night, I wrote a letter to the president of the company concerning my fears, but also pointing out that during my 25 years in this area, his company always appeared to be a good corporate citizen of the community.
Within days, I was contacted by the senior vice president of the firm, responsible for transportation, who fully discussed any concerns and gave me his corporate phone number for any follow-up of future problems.
The second example concerned what I felt were unwarranted rates, charged by the local cable TV company. The company sent me a form to document my complaint, which I could mail back to them or directly to the federal government bureau that oversees the cable TV industry. After reviewing the form and then reading an article concerning the government agency's policies on how complaints were handled, I chose not to fill out the complaint and waste my stamp sending it to the federal government.
Why? The news article about this agency pointed out, among other things, that if all of your t's were not crossed or your i's were not dotted correctly, your complaint would be thrown into the trash. Also, your complaint would not be acknowledged by the bureau.
Ms. Piven and Ms. Evenson, near the end of their article, wrote ``today, the Republicans are promoting the opposite solution. But their motive, depriving the people of power, remains the same.''
You be the judge. In the two examples above, whom would you rather deal with, Big Business or Big Government? All I can say is Big Business answered my concerns; Big Government never even heard them.
Ms. Piven and Ms. Evenson ended their article by saying, ``the contract with America proposes a dramatic devolution of power that will weaken the democratic process, skewing it in favor of this country's elite.'' That last statement leads me to believe that the ladies would rather have the liberal Democrat elite control the country instead of the conservative Republican elite. We do have both!
George J. Pitonyak
Partridge Place
Suffolk by CNB