Corporate welfare
I hope someone participating in the national dialogue has the courage to discuss "family values" beyond blaming the poor.
By framing the argument around those with the least amount of political and financial influence, I'm reminded of the magician who directs the audience to keep an eye on the left hand while everyone should know it's really the right hand where all the action is.
For all the chatter about personal responsibility to the community, I never hear anyone articulate a reasoned discussion on corporate responsibility to the community.
It's no wonder. Money equals influence in politics, and it's interesting that the corporate share of federal taxes has declined from 23 percent in the 1950s to less than 10 percent today.
The General Accounting Office reported in 1993 that four out of every 10 corporations with assets exceeding $250 million doing business in the United States paid either no income taxes, or taxes less than $100,000.
If we're going to discuss "values," let there be a dialogue in the corruption of community values when corporations leave neighborhoods and towns after two and three generations.
Or when corporations like Sears grant their chief executive officer a 198 percent raise (to $3 million) while telling tens of thousands of workers they're no longer affordable.
Remember, many people living below the poverty line have jobs.
Instead of a mean-spirited discourse pointing the finger exclusively at the poor, we should demand a broader conversation.
There is plenty of blame to go around.
Hugh T. Skelton
Baltimore
Access to education
How is a person to attain liberty, the pursuit of happiness or a healthy life without education?
If our nation is to fulfil these commitments of its founders, it is clear that freedom of education must be a right, not a privilege reserved for the descendants of royalty, slave-holders, robber barons and those they choose to educate.
The curtailment of the Banneker Scholarship (or any scholarship that gives access to education to those to whom history and economics have dealt a losing hand) is dead set against the ideals our nation was founded on. Considering all the numerous other scholarships aimed at much more narrowly defined groups, singling out the Banneker Scholarship is patently racist.
Kermit Leibensperger
Sykesville
This letter was signed by four other people.
Sauerbrey and the vote count
The amazing actions taken against Ellen Sauerbrey by the electoral machinery, judicial appointees and Democratic party regarding her investigation into the general election are beyond disgusting.
In a society where citizens should have the right to freely access public records without penalty, intimidation, or unnecessary delay, how can the following actions be justified?
* A judge (supposedly impartial) denies access to requested public records despite advice from the state attorney general's office and election board officials to allow access.
* Election boards, funded by public tax dollars, try to extort money from a candidate when the candidate's representatives only ask for access to public records and an electrical outlet to run their own copies,
* Cries of racism erupt in an attempt to negatively impugn a citizen who is merely exercising her legal rights.
* Massive allegations of irregularities, including dead voters and registration in abandoned buildings, are dismissed as merely "sour grapes."
I understand the delay in providing particulars because of the need for accuracy and documentation in a lawsuit, which I believe Mrs. Sauerbrey will be pursuing. When these particulars are finally brought to light, public investigation won't be enough.
Officials, appointees and private citizens that were aware of or assisted in efforts to hinder or corrupt the Sauerbrey effort should be fired and/or indicted, beginning at the State House.
This gross perversion of justice and the denial of individual legal rights needs to be corrected, and all of the people involved need to be punished severely.
Greg Muth
Cockeysville
In reply to all those whiny Sauerbrey supporters who have commented through talk radio and The Baltimore Sun, let me go on the record by saying I applaud Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke of Baltimore for speaking out about the obvious racist tactics of Ellen Sauerbrey and her supporters who have cast numerous innuendoes of wrongdoings against city voters . . .
As a city voter, taxpayer and upstanding citizen who happens to be Afro-American, I take Mrs. Sauerbrey's actions and those of her party as a personal attack on my integrity, and I resent it.
If you can't take it from the mayor, then take it from me.
Ellen Sauerbrey is showing pure racism.
How could she ever expect to govern the citizens of Baltimore fairly with such dismal behavior?
ackie Merchant
Baltimore
Conservative culture war impoverishes us
Rep. Newt Gingrich is treading on very dangerous ground when it comes to the outright dismantling of government institutions.
Though they are of relatively recent vintage, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the National Endowment for the Arts all serve useful purposes.
These departments may all need to be streamlined for better fiscal organization.
L However, privatization of all these areas is not the answer.
The Corporation for Public Broadcasting receives about $300 million a year from the federal government. This accounts for two-thirds of its annual budget. The rest of its money comes from endowments and donations.
The CPB could not survive without the help of the federal government. It provides quality programming, including "Sesame Street," "Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood" and "National Geographic Explorer," to name just a few.
Can you imagine the uproar among the "normal" American mothers when "Sesame Street" is taken off the air for lack of monetary resources?
Hypocritical Mr. Gingrich, who makes it a point to discuss family values, will be taking off one of the premier shows that espouses his so-called moral agenda.
While HUD is currently mired in a morass of corrupt contractors ** and inefficient bureaucracy, there is no reason to dismantle the program.
The congressional committee in charge of HUD funding should request an audit of agency finances and suggest ways to reallocate existing financial resources.
The goals of HUD should be redefined in the context of our changing society.
Used properly, the funds under HUD's jurisdiction could refurbish tenement projects in the inner cities and provide for education programs in these buildings relating to remedial education, for example the high school equivalency diploma.
Contrary to those of the conservative persuasion, I feel the arts, and the NEA in particular, have an important place in American society.
Art by nature is subjective. It can be perceived in any context that the viewer wishes. We cannot put limits on the thoughts of the artist.
The NEA supports and encourages the development and profusion of art in the United States through grants to aspiring and established artists across the country.
Many conservatives object to art that offends their personal taste, like photographer Andres Serrano's crucifix in a bottle of urine.
That is their right. However, our society is multicultural. Other points of view exist beyond those of the conservative realm. To properly expand our horizons we must be exposed to many kinds of artistic creations.
We cannot censor art to match the expectations of a provincial conservative majority.
The little money that the NEA gets from the federal government serves to enhance the creative vistas of Americans through exhibitions and art programs. We could all stand a little more enlightening, especially Mr. Gingrich, Sen. Jesse Helms and Sen. Alphonse D'Amato, Inc.
I'm afraid that the American public will wake up two years hence to the recognition that we are worse off morally, socially, educationally and culturally in the world of Mr. Gingrich.
udson Eichhorn
Fallston