Letters To The Editor

SHOWDOWN ON PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE

Beware, Clinton’s into heavy mettle

House Speaker Newt Gingrich and his subordinate, Congressman George Nethercutt, have overplayed their hand. They are betting they can bully President Clinton into signing their budget.

They have, sadly, come to believe their lies about the president. Because he does not return Gingrich’s (or Sen. Bob Dole’s) insults, they think him a coward. Because he does his best to compromise, they regard him as weak.

I predict that this week, they and the majority of journalists will discover how wrong they are about our president when he vetoes their mean-spirited, money-grubbing, stick-it-to-the-poor budget.

The Progressive Caucus reports this budget offers $122.5 billion in new tax breaks to those with incomes over $100,000. At the same time, it sticks it to the working poor and the elderly. They call it balancing the budget, but it is nothing more than payback to the wealthy, who bought Gingrich and friends their offices. Robert M. Stevenson Spokane

Deja voodoo all over again

Nov. 13 was a very important day. We have learned why President Clinton hasn’t figured out how to lead this country out of the major budget and fiscal crisis we currently face. He apparently doesn’t understand that if we spend more than we make, it causes a deficit.

While denouncing the congressional temporary debt limit increase, President Clinton said, “As I have said clearly and repeatedly, the Congress should keep the debt limit separate from the debate over how to balance the budget.”

The simple fact is, if we authorize ever increasing levels of debt, government will spend it and a balanced budget will be impossible to achieve. How do you separate the ability to spend more from the act of planning for such spending?

Perhaps this type of clouded thinking is what we have come to learn is President Clinton’s version of voodoo economics. Richard M. Munson Spokane

Theater of the absurd opens in D.C.

The federal debt ceiling is the centerpiece of today’s political debate and few people understand why. It all began during the 80th Congress in 1947, when the Republican congressional leadership decided the federal debt was too high (at $360 billion) and claimed that a debt ceiling would control public spending.

Not to be outdone in this political theater, President Truman proved he also was fiscally responsible and signed it into law.

Every year since, the first act of Congress has been to raise the debt limit just a little to keep the country afloat and functioning. In the meantime, the debt has risen to over $5 trillion, due primarily to President’s Reagan’s massive tax cut to $200 billion and doubling of the military budget (from $175 billion to $350 billion).

We have now elected people to government who claim to not believe in government and promise to dismantle it. Their legislative proposals cut $250 billion out of programs for the poor and disabled, but ignore $500 billion in annual subsidies to corporations and the wealthy, and the $270 billion for the military. To force through an unpopular program they have tied their demands to the annual raising of the debt limit.

The political theater has now become both silly and dangerous. If the debt limit is not raised and the federal government begins shutting down and defaulting on interest payments to bondholders and holders of contracts, even the uninformed zealot will feel the pain. Reed Hansen Pullman

Keep Clinton and can the fruit cocktail

My fellow Americans, how many of you remember the late 1920s and early ‘30s, when we had a Republican president?

Beware. History repeats itself. We are headed down that same old road and these Republicans of today are taking us down that road.

One bad fruit can spoil all the rest. Dole put out a real good pineapple, but now it seems to me they have come out with a lemon called Bob. Another one is called Gingrich, which should have been called “getting rich.” Yet another shadow to these first two is Nethercutt. He should have been forever cut.

They are trying to destroy all the middle class and the poor. They want to control the whole country.

I hope the American people don’t ever sign the final papers on the so-called “Contract with America.” That contract isn’t worth the paper it’s written on.

I don’t vote Democrat or Republican; I vote for the person I believe will help make the situation better. This no doubt is President Bill Clinton. He has ideas more like Franklin D. Roosevelt’s than any president has had since that time. So please, whatever you do, keep our great nation on the right path and vote for the right man.

God bless our great nation and God bless Bill Clinton. Reginald H. Davis Sr. Spokane

GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS

Biggest lie is at end of money trail

Jean Bell (Nov. 9) says she is sick and tired of hearing Democrats “hawk the big lie” that the Republican Medicare Reform plan will double Part B premiums by 2002. By a little simple arithmetic, she tries to show that under the present plan, premiums will double anyway.

However, increased premiums are just one small part of a big problem. The majority of seniors don’t rely on Medicare alone. They join health maintenance organizations or pay premiums for supplemental insurance. Those are the costs that will zoom out of sight to make up for the devastating cuts in the House and Senate proposals.

Cutting $270 billion from Medicare is far more than is necessary to keep the program solvent.

Cuts of such magnitude wouldn’t only increase beneficiary out-of-pocket costs, but also reduce payments to doctors and hospitals, thus jeopardizing the access and quality of our health care system.

If significant changes aren’t made by the Senate-House conference committee, the final bill is heading for a presidential veto.

As for the new coverage options in the Republican plan, House Speaker Newt Gingrich is gleefully predicting that Medicare will “wither on the vine.” His favorite alternative is the proposed medical savings account (MSA). He got the idea from an insurance buddy who has contributed $1.2 billion to the GOP and is eagerly anticipating an influx of dollars from seniors choosing that option as they’re squeezed out of Medicare. Elinor Nuxoll Spokane

AMA in special-interest nirvana

Recently the GOP rammed its Medicare-Medicaid legislation through the House and Senate, but in its effort to keep the details secret, it was presented to the House Ways and Means Committee for non-stop passage by the GOP majority in a series of party-line votes.

Certain of its content, the Republicans failed to run it by the American Medical Association, which found “several problems” with the GOP plan to cut Medicare payments to doctors before it got to the floor. This necessitated hasty, secret meetings between AMA representatives and congressional committee chairmen. The latter swiftly made adjustments to satisfy the AMA.

The AMA’s senior vice president talked to House Speaker Newt Gingrich and then told reporters the doctors would now receive “billions of dollars” more than originally planned.

Big Medicine now has fewer problems, what with the Republicans’ relaxation of Medicare doctor fee fraud controls and ending of a ban on doctor’s making referrals for testing to laboratories the same doctors own or have an interest in.

Details about those badly affected by the Republican legislation aren’t getting the media attention they deserve from the capital press corps. According to media critic Ben Bagdikian, the press corps in D.C. spends too much time talking to “movers and shakers” and too little time talking to those “being moved and shaken.”

It’s common practice for PAC lobbyists to write GOP legislation. Now they are rewriting any they don’t approve of, according to the Washington Spectator. Jim Halterman Spokane

So far so good

As I write this letter, the federal government has been shut down for some three hours and as far as I can tell, life goes on.

If the whole government can shut down for several days without any really noticeable effects, don’t you think that the country can survive the moderate spending restraints proposed in the Republicans’ balanced budget plan? Dan Buller Spokane

Rich hardly being taxed to death

It’s not hard to see what House Speaker Newt Gingrich and his gang are up to. They’re cutting benefits to the poor and cutting taxes to the stock investors by half. These people are virtually all wealthy, many making millions, and some billions, of dollars each year. They’re the ones who could afford to pay more taxes.

Allowing them this money means they can force the people to work at minimum wage. Just like the fancy hotel and playground, built by the wealthy, for the wealthy, in our area, built at minimum wage. It would take us back to the days of kings and peasants, doing away with the middle class.

We already have too many billionaires in our country, bleeding wealth away from the poor and working class. Giving away $1,000 a day, it would take 1,000 days to give away $1 million. Last year, one billionaire made about $4 million on the stock market. Should he be excluded from paying income tax on half of his income? I don’t think so. Herb Sams Elk, Wash.

Through the looking glass, turn right

We have too many people on welfare. The GOP solution: Cut welfare spending, make them get off in two years, and force them to get a job.

Our evolving economy is creating jobs. These jobs require a higher level of education than they used too. The GOP solution: Cut education, particularly vocational and technical programs, and teach them only the three R’s. It was good enough for grandpa, should be fine today.

So, what do we do about all the people we cut off welfare and fail to educate? GOP solution: Build more jails and prisons. That way, we can lock up all the new criminals the above measures produce.

Medical care costs are soaring. GOP solution: Cut Medicare and Medicaid. This will cut down the number of people who need medical services. They won’t be able to obtain and pay for adequate care or they will die.

Rich people don’t have enough money to invest. GOP solution: Cut taxes for them. This will help them buy each other’s banks and companies and continue to downsize operations. That way, more people will need welfare, jobs, jail cells and medical care.

Excuse me, but I don’t feel this makes any sense. Walter Lane Spokane

Apply performance penalty to officials

Downsizing occurs in many private sector firms that encounter temporary setbacks. Cutbacks in expenditures of up to 30 percent aren’t unheard of.

A 15 percent cutback in federal expenditures would allow some payment on the national debt. Would a 15 percent cut destroy any one program? Hardly.

It’s reported that in some government programs (Medicare, Medicaid) the waste and fraud figures go beyond 15 percent. This wasn’t addressed once in the congressional hearings on Medicare.

Those who hold to a guaranteed growth rate for programs consider holding spending to current levels to be a cut. This shouldn’t be the position of our elected representatives.

I’ve asked several congressmen to submit congressional legislation to decrease the salaries of congressmen by 10 percent for each year the budget isn’t balanced. This should include the president and all staff. This provides for personal accountability. I haven’t received one response to this proposal.

I’ve also asked some presidential hopefuls to include this concept in their platform. Not one of them has mentioned it or responded to my letters.

When this concept was proposed during a call to C-SPAN, the guest journalist commented it was too gimmicky. Is it gimmicky to demand accountability for our elected representatives? Kirby Sheets Ephrata, Wash.

OTHER TOPICS

Education: Don’t spend more money

I think it’s a fallacy that parents want to see more spending on education (Nov. 8 “Congress has no mandate to gut education funding”).

Every time I hear they increase the education budget, I get worried. That means less time spent on the basics - reading, writing, grammar - do they teach that anymore? - math, history, geography and more new programs that are of little academic value.

For the first time in many generations, the public education system is producing a generation of children less educated than their parents. Why can private schools operate on budgets half of what public schools do, yet their test scores are reported higher in almost every major subject area?

Something tells me that throwing money at the problem isn’t going to solve it. Maybe public schools should start looking at private schools as a resource, not an enemy. Patty Hime Spokane

Health district takes ‘responsible course’

Ha, ha, ha. The cartoon commentary Your View depicting the Spokane County Health District as stopsmoking Nazis begged for a response.

The Spokane County Health District is taking the conscientious and responsible course in working toward curtailing tobacco smoking in restaurants. Cartoonist Mike Carroll is probably not aware that 800 American cities and four entire states have already made all restaurants smoke-free. Why? Health and liability issues.

Much like flight attendants who lobbied for smoke-free airplanes, employees of restaurants that allow smoking are finding out that their exposure is 8-10 times higher than normal exposure.

Both federal and Washington state law (Washington Industrial Safety and Health Act RCW 49.17) require that the employee be protected from unsafe environments. Secondhand smoke is an unsafe Class A carcinogen. Restaurant customers, especially families with children and individuals with asthma, emphysema and other respiratory diseases, deserve the same consideration.

Based on what is happening in other states and cities, our health district, far from being Nazis, may be giving us a gentle warning and saving our restaurants from future liability claims which, incidentally, have been awarded to employees and customers in restaurants that allowed smoking. Theresa Boschert Spokane

Savings withheld from consumers

I’ve been reading lately that raw coffee bean costs have dropped 50 percent, supposedly prompting major roasters to cut supermarket prices by about 7 percent. So far, I haven’t seen this in our local stores.

I also read that cattle prices per pound were supposedly dropped to $.61 per pound for farmers, but yet supermarket beef prices have only dropped $.18 per pound.

Guess who’s getting rich on this? It’s sure not the consumer. Are the companies more interested in paying their stockholders? You bet. Bob Elmore Spokane

Fond farewell to comics friends

What a downer. With all the bad news and bad things going on in the world today, I was heartbroken to read about the end for Calvin & Hobbes.

When I read the paper every day, the last thing I read is the comics, and the last one I read is the brat boy and his stuffed tiger. That’s the only way to start or end a day.

I will miss the space-flying, baby-sitter tormenting, snowball-throwing, leader of the G.R.O.S.S., teacher-taunting, booger-wiping boy and his frightening, fighting furry friend. No comic can replace Calvin & Hobbes. Live on, Spaceman Spiff and Tiger. Ron McGuire Deer Park, Wash.