Letters To The Editor

BUSINESS AND LABOR

Don’t expand NAFTA; reform it

Working families should take a hard look at President Clinton’s recent report to Congress on the North American Free Trade Agreement, the trade deal with Mexico.

The true test of any trade agreement is whether it’s good for working families. So judged, NAFTA doesn’t measure up, despite the rosy picture President Clinton paints.

There’s the threat to food safety from the big increase in imported fruits and vegetables from Mexico up to 60 percent of some produce. Yet, according to the Department to Agriculture, only one or two of every 100 shipments are inspected. No wonder people are getting sick from eating contaminated food.

There’s the threat of more drugs coming into our schools and neighborhoods. “For the godfathers of the drug trade, NAFTA is a deal made in narco heaven,” according to Phil Jordan, former Drug Enforcement Agency director of intelligence. Jordan says the administration knew NAFTA would increase drug trafficking.

There’s the threat to good jobs. More than 400,000 workers have lost their jobs due to NAFTA. Meanwhile, corporate executives rake in record-breaking salaries and bonuses while average workers’ wages stagnate.

Anyway you cut it, NAFTA has been good for big business and top executives but not good for average working families.

The rules of the trading game must change so that they protect working families’ living standard. Until that is done, Congress should reject Clinton’s request for “fast track” authority that would allow him to expand NAFTA to other countries. NAFTA expansion defies common sense. Dennis E. Young, secretary-treasurer Teamsters Union, Local 582, Spokane

Goal is profit, not welfare

I don’t know how old Eric J. Graham is (“Economic realities different now,” letters, July 14) but I suspect he is fairly young from the content of his letter. I will admit economic realities really are different now.

He alludes to a 71-year-old man’s comments on the welfare system. I am 73. I can remember that my father was lucky to have a job when I was young. When he did have a job, he had no medical, dental or retirement benefits at all. In fact, my first job after graduation from college in 1949, with a B.S. in civil engineering, was one with no benefits.

Until about nine years before I retired, the only fringe benefit I had was some medical coverage, and part of that I had to pay for myself. Fringe benefits were provided as employers sought to attract new employees. For a long time, only those working for government and members of some unions had benefits.

Employers have never had the standard of living of their employees as the main object of their business. The main object in a non-socialist society has been and will always be profit - and properly so.

The fringe benefits package should always be according to what an employer has to provide to have enough employees at a wage the employer can pay and still make a profit while producing the goods and services the public demands.

There are no guarantees in this life and it is each person’s responsibility to take care of his or her own welfare. Ralph R. Walker Spokane

SPOKANE MATTERS

Geraghty’s thinking hard to fathom

Mayor Jack Geraghty’s comment regarding Sabey Corp. and Washington state sharing the cost of making additional road improvements on Division Street is in itself ironic.

No question about it, Division is a busy corridor. If the state and Sabey Corp. want to make further improvements, you’d think the mayor would welcome this contribution. After all, sharing the expense of a traffic ramp in an effort to improve traffic flow is significantly different from vacating a city block of Post Street for the use of River Park Square.

One thing’s for sure: $919,000 for public road improvements on Division pales in comparison with the $24 million of Department of Housing and Urban Development money plus the millions of dollars of local parking meter revenue the mayor and City Council have already offered to the developers of River Park Square. Les R. Kinsey, general manager NorthTown Mall, Spokane

Ironic - what’s so ironic?

The Spokesman-Review reported Mayor Jack Geraghty as saying it’s “ironic as all get-out” when Sabey Corp. requested the use of public-private money to aid in the construction of a parking ramp for a possible new parking garage at NorthTown Mall (Region, July 12).

Was it ironic as all get-out when Geraghty and the Spokane City Council bent over backward to help downtown developers put together an attractive financial package to redevelop the privately owned River Park Square - guaranteeing a $24.8 million Department of Housing and Urban Development loan to aid the developers, plus pledging the revenue from our parking meters (for the next 20 years) to cover any shortfall in parking garage receipts, and who knows what else? Dallas Dixon Spokane

REMEMBRANCE

Carl Maxey will be missed

Today, Spokane lost an honorable man. Carl Maxey, we’ll miss you and love you. David E. Ward Spokane

Maxey’s qualities will endure

Carl Maxey was truly a treasured pillar of our community who will be missed in many ways. A man who gave his profession a dignity and respect of what it was supposed to represent: that, in a court of law, all men are created equal.

He was a true civil leader and humanitarian who was always there for the underdog.

Poet Thomas Carlyle wrote: “Nothing that was worthy in the past departs; no truth or goodness realized by man ever dies or can die.”

The goodness of Carl Maxey will never die. Charles T. Bowman Spokane

Trusted defender of those in need

Thank you for the wonderful articles about Carl Maxey and his extraordinary life. Such a great man, and at the same time, he was available to so many of us who weren’t able to pay him for his high-caliber advice and counsel.

My first reactions to his death were disbelief and fear of facing the world without the one person who could move mountains if ever you needed a mountain to be moved. He was the one person who would stand up for a total stranger and fight for fairness in an unfair world. That was Maxey’s reputation, and he earned it.

The loss of Carl Maxey as a leader in our community is tremendous. His life was an example of strength, courage and accomplishment. His dynamic personality will be greatly missed. Ginger M. Ninde Medical Lake

Maxey enriched our lives

Thank you for your fine coverage of the recent death of Carl Maxey. Because Maxey defended such a variety of people, it was easy to think of him as a man who was just after the money, another heartless attorney. Although I was always aware of the contribution Maxey made to the Spokane community, that knowledge often fell to the wayside when I disagreed with someone he was defending or something he said or did.

Maxey’s character was a rich blend. The work he did to protect our civil rights, whether he represented us personally or not, is something for which we must all be grateful. Spokane is a poorer place for his passing.

My sympathy goes out to Bevan, Bill and Lou Maxey, and to the rest of his family, friends and associates. You were blessed to know him and I am grateful you were able to share him with our community. Deborah Lawrence Hale Greenacres

Government hand heavy with largess

I have several problems with Lucinda B. Willis’ July 13 guest column, “Heavy hand of OSHA strangles.”

First, you failed to properly identify her sponsoring body, the Heritage Foundation, as an extreme right-wing think tank, rather than simply a “public-policy research institute.” The Heritage Foundation, for example, calls for the complete elimination of all social welfare programs in the United States, including Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, AFDC, Social Security disability, etc. This is not “mainstream,” even in the most conservative Republican circles.

Secondly, Idaho farmers protest a little too much about government regulation. Idaho farmers receive almost $200 million a year in direct federal subsidies. Some subsidies, such as land set-aside programs, actually pay farmers not to work. Per capita, the average farmer receives over twice the yearly subsidy an Idaho welfare family received before the recent welfare reform.

Idaho farmers also receive special tax subsidies, electrical power subsidies, subsidized water from federal projects and special exemptions concerning pollution. In total, these subsidies could top $500 million a year in Idaho.

Third, when it comes to industrial accidents, the record of Idaho farmers and agricultural processing industries is among the worst. In the Palouse region, several horrible maiming accidents occur each year on the farm. Idaho farm workers weren’t even entitled to workman’s compensation until Gov. Phil Batt stared down the Idaho farm lobby last year.

Idaho farmers cannot have it both ways. They cannot take hard-earned taxpayer money as subsidies while at the same time demanding that “big government get off their backs.” Steven S. Peterson Moscow, Idaho