Wimpy Facade
It is very sad to see Baltimore's Police Commissioner Thomas C. Frazier cower behind his wimpy facade and reject Attorney General J. Joseph Curran Jr.'s call for a special squad of officers to seize illegal firearms.
Mr. Frazier is either going to do it now or do it later, after we have a thousand more shootings on the streets of Baltimore.
"No guts," says Officer Gary McLhinney, president of the police officers union. That statement sums it up completely when you assess Commissioner Frazier's job performance.
Walter Boyd
Lutherville
Photo Surprise
You can imagine my surprise when an acquaintance called to tell me a picture of my billboard had appeared in The Baltimore Sun.
At my request a copy of your special report, "America's Most Wanted Welfare Plan," with a picture of our firm's billboard was mailed to me. Under the picture of the billboard is a caption that reads, "A law firm advertises SSI aid on Denver skid row. 'When lawyers are this interested in a federal program, it's a good bet that it is out of control,' says Bob Cote who runs a nearby half-way house."
Our firm was never contacted by your paper regarding this article. Based upon the negative connotation, I would like to respond.
You will note that the billboard itself contains the wording, "Social Security disability -- have questions?" . . .
One type of benefit plan is Supplemental Security Income. SSI is a need-based program for the disabled. You are eligible for benefits regardless of whether you have ever paid into the Social Security program. . .
Social Security Disability Insurance is a federal insurance program which is paid for by workers and employers who have contributed into the system through taxation. In order to be eligible for Social Security disability benefits you must have worked and paid in for 20 of 40 quarters preceding onset of disability. . .
Our law firm does not ordinarily handle Supplemental Security Income cases except on a pro-bono basis.
We do, however, have billboards that are rotated on a quarterly basis around the Denver metro area and outlying counties. We have little control over the specific location. Outdoor Systems, our billboard company, selects to place the billboards and their rotation in our general geographical area.
Supplemental Security Income cases are referred by our firm to the Metropolitan Legal Aid program, which handles them on a pro-bono or reduced fee basis.
So, contrary to Mr. Cote's assertion that we are advertising for Supplemental Security Income, we are not.
We are making our services available to those individuals who have paid into the federal disability system and, for one reason or another, have been unable to receive benefits after becoming disabled under the Social Security disability provisions. . .
Janet L. Frickey
Denver
The writer is a principal in Norton Frickey & Associates.
Not Rich
I resent your Feb. 26 editorial which claims that the Republicans in Congress are only going to pass tax cuts to the rich.
One of the Republican plans is to cut the capital gains tax. This will benefit many Americans like me.
I am not rich. I have 29 years left on my mortgage, I still owe money on my 1990 automobile and I recently spent $1,100 in repairs on my car (part of which I still owe to my credit card).
Making less than $40,000 is middle class income, the last I heard. Yet I had to pay $66 in capital gains taxes for 1994. With this money, I could pay 10 percent of my credit card bill or take my wife out to dinner, thus helping a restaurant pay its bills.
Patrick K. Harris
Elkridge
Help Needed
I'm writing to address the fast-food-type service that many establishments are offering these days.
It would be very nice and much appreciated, especially at gas stations, to have service personnel to help a physically challenged person pump gas.
Many of the machines are too high to reach, and the pumps are cumbersome to handle.
I have encountered some who just won't help, and are "uneducated" that when they have to help someone out, they benefit as well as the disabled individual.
Helen Willis
Hagerstown
Davis-Bacon
In response to Norman Hill of Washington, who wrote to you concerning the Davis-Bacon Act (letters, Feb. 22), my reply to him would be: Obviously his place of business, A. Philip Randolph Institute, is not a privately-owned construction firm that works directly with Davis-Bacon. If he did he might feel a little different about the prevailing wage.
For readers not familiar with the Davis-Bacon Act, let me enlighten them. I work for a mid-size finishing contractor in Baltimore, and 80 percent of our work is on commercial buildings that come under the Davis-Bacon Act.
We are a non-union company, and we are bidding against union companies all the time. On a building that is not under the Davis-Bacon Act the bid will be substantially lower.
We pay our workers anywhere from $12 an hour to $15 an hour, depending on their experience and skills.
When these same employees are sent to work on a prevailing wage scale job (Davis-Bacon) their pay rate increases to anywhere from $21 an hour to $25 an hour, depending on the amount of the fringe.
When I receive my wage scale from the general contractor after we are awarded a project I am shocked at some of the pay rates for skilled and unskilled workers. I have seen where a water boy will be paid $14 an hour and a flag man up to $15 an hour.
Show me where any entry level position for a college graduate or even a high school graduate will be paid these wages. With the minimum wage being under $5 an hour, I always felt that $10 to $15 was a fair wage, whether it is skilled or unskilled. In most cases these workers do not have to finish high school, much less any college.
Insisting that these same workers be paid wages that are outrageous only hurts all of our pocketbooks, because these wages are only paid on government buildings and roads.
So who do you think is paying for these wages? We are -- through our taxes.
Linda M. Hess
Sykesville
Limiting Guns
Most gun control laws are not, as Peter Jay suggests, "more commonly used against the law-abiding than against criminals."
Licensing, registration and limits on the number of handguns which can be purchased by an individual in a given time period are cases in point.
Each of these measures ' part of a comprehensive set of gun-control proposals developed by Marylanders Against Handgun Abuse which will be introduced in the General Assembly for consideration in 1996 ' is designed to disrupt the black market.
The black market thrives, in part, because gun traffickers can recruit individuals, often referred to as straw purchasers, who buy large numbers of guns in the legal market for transfer to the illegal market.
The number of straw purchasers needed to support black market activities rises dramatically under a one-gun-a-month regime, while their exposure to the legal system increases as a result of licensing and registration.
In other words, these measures, by putting pressure on straw purchasers, affect the supply of guns in the illegal market.
Peter Jay enthusiastically supports a proposal by Attorney General Joe Curran for use of intensive search and seizure techniques by the police to take illegal guns off the street.
At the same time he disparages gun-control laws. Whatever the merits of search and seizure, it should be clear that this proposal must not be used to stop progress on adoption of the comprehensive gun-control measures proposed by MAHA which would do so much to limit the supply of guns available on the black market.
We know that Joe Curran, a strong supporter of the MAHA proposal, does not intend for his search and seizure initiative to act as a substitute for comprehensive gun control. We agree.
Douglas Weil
Baltimore
The writer is director of the Center to Prevent Handgun Violence.