LETTERS: VETO: BALANCING POWER

To the editor:

Bob Dole, Newt Gingrich and other Republicans are criticizing President Clinton for vetoing their budget-balancing program. The Republicans still don't understand the intentions of the voters. The voters didn't trust the Republicans in both houses of Congress and the presidency too, so they put a Democrat in the White House with a veto pen to watch over the common people.

After having won a majority in both houses of Congress, Gingrich and Dole thought they had a mandate to do as they pleased. Backed by a hall full of corporate lobbyists telling them to give us more and balance the budget on the backs of the little people, they started rolling over Democrats and intended to ram their budget package down Clinton's throat.

But Clinton did what the voters elected him to do. He vetoed it. So when they criticize Clinton, they are also criticizing the majority of voters.

The Republicans should have cut their own salaries and started paying some of their own health care. They should have taken a little from the rich and the billionaires that sprang up under Reagan's massive tax cuts and supply-side and trickle-down economics. Then, and only then, will the rank and file trust them.

The American people wanted some changes and some reform, but they didn't want to hurt the elderly, children, handicapped and veterans. And those are the groups the selfish Republicans went after. So they put Clinton in the big chair with the big veto pen. Gingrich and Dole just found out how big it is.

W.T. WOODS

Bertrand