ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, November 8, 1996 TAG: 9611080017
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-16 EDITION: METRO
TYPE: LETERS
REGARDING LILA B. Nester's Nov. 3 letter to the editor, ``Minimum wage is still too low'':
Why don't we ask Congress to legislate a $20-an-hour minimum wage? That way, according to Nester, we could wipe out poverty, welfare, etc.. The taxpayer wouldn't have to foot the bill, just those mean companies with deep pockets.
While Congress is at it, it could legislate that every large or small corporation make a profit - say, about 15 percent a year. With every company making a profit, we wouldn't see any bankruptcies or people losing their jobs due to business closings, and government could get a guaranteed tax on all profits. Yes, there are companies that actually fail. They aren't like our government that continues to operate year after year on deficits.
Nester states: ``Thus employers - instead of taxpayers - would be paying to support their employees.'' Guess what: If you are a taxpayer, you are a consumer. Who buys the goods and services these companies produce? Most companies have to produce profits to stay in business because they are owned by stockholders who will not invest in companies that lose money. Who are the stockholders? In most cases, they are people like you and me.
You say you don't own stock. Well, if you have a pension plan, savings account or own mutual funds, you own stock or are affected by the stock market. Contrary to what many in Washington want you to believe - that corporations are all owned by a rich, greedy person counting money in a back room - they are owned by stockholders. If the cost of doing business goes up, it's not the employer but the consumer who pays. With a $20 minimum wage, be prepared to spend $5 for a loaf of bread, $8 for a Big Mac or $5 for this newspaper.
It's interesting that Clinton's concern for the minimum-wage earner didn't materialize until recently. Where was it when he had a majority in the House and Senate for the first two years of his administration? Sen. John Warner and others voted against the increase, not because they are against people making more money, but because they know that government interference in the wage process doesn't work. It causes the very inflation that Nester claims robs minimum-wage earners of their pay.
KENT CARTNER
ROANOKE
Animal kingdom lost a true friend
WAINE TOMLINSON was my friend. He passed away suddenly, leaving a huge void in my life and the lives of many others.
His love for animals was so very genuine. He founded the League for Animal Protection, along with our no-kill shelter in Botetourt County, with the hope that people would become more responsible pet owners.
He was a true friend, one I had to defend on occasion because people didn't understand him and his commitment to our four-legged friends. He devoted his life to his own animals and those who were abused, mistreated or homeless.
The Roanoke Valley animal community has truly lost a friend. And while many of us will try to fill his shoes, it will be extremely hard to do. Tomlinson was one of a kind, and I consider my life so much richer for having known him over the past five years. I will miss him.
MAGGIE DREWRY
ROANOKE
AEP scare tactics will not work
HOW CLEVER of you! Imagine, The Roanoke Times printing an old, scary commentary by American Electric Power's Ronald L. Poff (``Western Va. needs AEP line'') right before Halloween.
What dire prophecies. Dark Ages, here we come. Poff forgets that the last 765-kilovolt power line built in the mid-1980s from West Virginia to Pulaski never touched any national-forest lands. Maybe we are supposed to be too dumb to remember.
Like most made-up stories calculated to frighten, let's all be thankful that it just isn't true. Please, next Halloween, print more bogeyman commentaries by Poff.
GEORGE O'NALE
NEW CASTLE
Put more focus on adoption
THERE IS something wrong with a society that thinks killing a child is better than placing the child with a licensed adoption agency.
Open adoption is an option! It gives the child a loving family, and it gives the birth parents the opportunity to know the adoptive parents and to keep in touch with the child.
I would like to see more positive articles written about the brave birth mothers who place a child for adoption.
SHEILA STEELE
NEWPORT
LENGTH: Medium: 89 linesby CNB