Inexcusable

I find it inexcusable that your March 11 front-page story, "Extra funds for disability used for raises," left readers with the mistaken impression that the Social Security Administration voluntarily chose to fund employee pay raises with money provided by Congress.

SSA did not voluntarily choose to redirect funds from the required disability reviews to fund employee pay raises. In fact, it was the Congress that mandated the employee pay raises -- costing $67 million this year -- and then provided no funds to pay for them.

Since all of SSA's increases in discretionary funds were devoted toward the agency's number one priority, improving the disability program, Congress was well aware that the money to fund the pay raises would have to come those funds SSA had planned to use to process disability cases.

There was one other option which was available to SSA -- one we found totally unacceptable -- laying off SSA employees. How ironic it would have been to lay off the very same workers that SSA must count on to handle the growing disability workloads.

Over the past four years, SSA has experienced an unprecedented increase -- more than 40 percent -- in applications for disability benefits.

As applications escalated, and the backlog of initial claims grew, SSA had to make difficult decisions about the best use of scarce administrative resources.

Since Social Security benefits are often the only means of support for disabled workers and their families, SSA chose to give the highest priority to processing initial claims for disability instead of reviewing the continuing eligibility of individuals already receiving disability payments.

That is not to say that we find this situation acceptable. On the contrary, we agree that more action needs to be taken to address the growing backlog of disability reviews.

That is why SSA instituted a new disability review process in 1993 that is already yielding positive results and represents a major step forward in ensuring that people who are no longer disabled will not remain on the rolls.

Lawrence H. Thompson

Baltimore

;/ The writer is a deputy commissioner of SSA.

Assisted Suicide

A poll (reported in The Sun, Feb. 21) has been described several times as indicating "three-to-one approval of physician-assisted suicide in Maryland." That is misleading. As the primary sponsor of the poll, I want to make clear what the poll actually showed.

It actually showed that most of the people of Maryland favor physician-assisted suicide (in preference to criminalizing all assisting of suicide) under some circumstances.

The key question spells out those circumstances. There are three of them: a patient "suffering from painful or very distressing physical conditions," with "little or no chance of recovery," and "a persistent request" by the patient for aid in dying.

It should not be surprising that under these fairly extreme circumstances 69 percent of the 500 persons polled approved of their doctors' being permitted to aid them in dying with dignity. (Only 23 percent favored the alternative, and 8 percent had no opinion.)

The word "permit" in the poll is also important. What most of the respondents approved was not that physicians should be encouraged to aid a patient in dying, even when the three specified circumstances all exist.

It was only that they be "permitted" to provide such help if in addition, using their own best judgment in an individual case, they "believe it is fully justified." This would not constrain physicians in any way. It would free them from the shackles of the law and the courts in one important area.

What voters preferred was therefore a decidedly limited form of physician-assisted suicide. That is a sane, moderate, middle-of-the-road position.

If the legislature, after fully adequate study, were to embody it in law, it would probably have majority support among the voters.

Ralph White

Cockeysville

The writer is a retired professor of psychology at George Washington University and a founder of Psychologists for Social Responsibility.

Going Electronic

The March 8 Associated Press article, "Welfare reform replaces food stamps with cash," that ran on the front page of The Sun included statements from me about the advantages of giving eligible families cash instead of food stamps.

While serving as commissioner of the Alabama Department of Human Resources and in a number of administrative positions with the U.S. Department of Agriculture -- most recently as deputy administrator of the Food Stamp Program -- I learned that although cash in lieu of food stamps has some advantages, there is a risk that food aid could be diverted to non-food needs.

A point I tried but unfortunately failed to make to the reporter is that food stamps and checks will become obsolete methods of issuing welfare benefits in the future. With the active support of the USDA, more than half of all states are planning to switch to the method currently being pioneered by Maryland -- electronic benefit transfer (EBT).

Eventually, most major government assistance programs will be administered through EBT systems.

Within the next two years, the southeastern states will begin testing an EBT system that will include state programs such as food stamps and Aid to Families with Dependent Children, as well as federal programs such as Supplemental Security Income.

EBT will certainly be less expensive than issuing food stamps, a process that requires special issuance facilities and staff as well as things like armed guards and armored trucks.

Good public administrators take advantage of advancing technology to increase efficiency in government. Most administrators of assistance programs will soon be following Maryland's lead to electronic issuance.

Andrew P. Hornsby Jr.

Montgomery, Ala.

H

The writer is Alabama's commissioner of human resources.

Anonymous Writer

Your March 2 Opinion * Commentary article, "Abortion Makes it Easier for Abuse to Continue," by Mary Jean Doe raises a question: Since when can letters and commentaries be anonymous?

This opens a Pandora's box of possibilities for the purveyors of untruths, slander and propaganda to have their say without the need for documentation of facts.

Ms. Doe certainly makes serious accusations against a Planned Parenthood clinic, which Planned Parenthood advocates have an obligation, let alone a right, to refute. But how to refute it, if Miss Doe does not have to name the clinic where she was treated?

It is a bizarre story from start to finish. What I am wondering is, how could The Sun be hoodwinked into printing what is obviously a propaganda line from a radical right-wing anti-choice group? You are usually cautious and careful in selecting statements and letters from both sides, in a balanced fashion.

This piece is shocking, not only for its obvious contradictions, but for the fact that The Sun would publish such a poorly reasoned piece of garbage, and do so anonymously.

@Robin J. Breitenecker

Cockeysville

Nicotine a Drug

Ellen Goodman's column, "How the Mad Scientists Dispense Addiction" (Opinion * Commentary March 4), correctly (and courageously) labeled the tobacco industry as "drug pushers."

The U.S. tobacco industry is spending millions (or billions?) in advertising and promotion to push cigarette smoking (nicotine addiction) in Third World and developing nations.

Since, as a nation, we condone this as a boost to our export trade, we must assume individual and collective responsibility for the deaths from cancer and heart disease which will result. As a nation, we appear to condone drug pushing, because it is profitable.

Nicotine in cigarettes is a drug. We should not permit the promotion of cigarettes as a part of our export trade.

We don't need to create new drug addicts to make a living. After all, we are a great and moral nation and the role model for the world.

Bernice S. Seiden

Baltimore

Why Name the Accused?

I can contain myself no longer. You did it again! The Sun reported another case of sexual abuse, this time aimed at a priest by a "homosexually inclined" person.

You did not name the accuser because "The Sun does not name victims of alleged sexual abuse" (March 13). What in God's name gives you the right to name the alleged accused?

Do you know how many sick minds are out there? Do you realize that in many cases, the accuser recants his or her story? Meanwhile, you have ruined the reputation by innuendo of the accused who remains just that -- the accused.

No proof or court of law has yet said the priest was guilty. Until such proof comes forward, you should cease your illegal and immoral practice of naming names just for the sake of selling a few more papers.

Barbara M. Stevens

Baltimore

Your recent articles on the Catholic priest charged, among other things, with sexual harassment in a multi-million dollar civil suit piously proclaim that The Sun does not name "alleged victims of sexual abuse."

Yet you show no hesitation in naming the priest, even though his actions are far from proven and are only alleged. Remember Cardinal Bernardin? Who was the "victim" in that matter?

The accuser in this case has voluntarily filed a civil action seeking millions of dollars for himself. His name is, and should a matter of public record.

Your actions in naming the priest, but not his accuser, are hypocritical.

William R. Dorsey III

Baltimore

When The Sun reports the allegations of sexual abuse of minors by members of the clergy, it is laudable that they maintain the policy of withholding the identity of the minor involved.

However, isn't the alleged perpetrator of these deplorable acts (which may or may not have occurred) entitled to the same right to privacy until the news is more than merely that allegations have been made? Particularly when there are no criminal charges pending?

It is a great injustice to defame members of our community who have dedicated their lives to assisting troubled youth with no more credibility than the assertions of a young man seeking a large monetary reward for a purported wrong.

It is my hope that The Sun will consider adopting a more just policy in the future and refrain from publishing the name of the alleged perpetrator until there is substantial evidence that there is some truth to the allegations.

Louise Wright

Baltimore