SPEAKOUT

Environmental vote

I've never been labeled as an environmentalist, but Jo Ann Emerson labeled the White House move to restore the water quality of 20,000 waterways nothing but an EPA power grab. This is just complete insanity. Anybody who loves fishing or hunting or the outdoors needs healthy waterways. I think we should vote Emerson out of office and vote for the only alternative, Bob Camp.

All about control

Clinton and Gore poured billions of taxpayer dollars into Palestine last year and into Russia, but it failed to give Clinton his peace legacy. Now Clinton and Gore have hopes of killing two birds with one stone by appointing Joseph Lieberman as the vice presidential running mate to Gore. This punished Arafat for messing up Clinton's Camp David legacy summit, and they hope to help Hillary in New York. Hillary won't be kissing Arafat's wife in the future now. What impostors Clinton, Gore and Hillary are. They are only out for pure power and control.

Support schools

To the person who said that all the Jackson School District needs is more planning and not more money: It is true classroom sizes used to be larger, but it is also true that few people got more than an eighth-grade education. Fifty years ago an eighth-grade education would have been fine, but in the year 2000 it just isn't going to cut it. How do you know the teachers don't work harder? Were you a teacher? I have several friends who are teachers. Teaching is not a 8-to-3 job. Every night teachers spend several hours grading papers and preparing for lessons not to mention all the hours they spend on the weekend. Teachers today are very committed. I am tired of the people who don't support their schools, so I have a proposal: support your schools or move out of town.

Totalitarian guidelines

I love it when a Speak Out caller tries to tell us what topics we should or should not discuss in Speak Out. It reflects the totalitarian impulse at its zenith. Perhaps the caller would feel more comfortable living in Cuba.

School planning

I find it really amusing the people who were demanding that growth in Jackson be stopped. That is like standing on a hillside and demanding the wind to stop blowing. Growth will continue, and it is only sensible and proper to make plans to accept the growth and plan for it. Many who voted against the school bond issue are not against growth or against the children or the school. They are against the piecemeal application to try to solve these problems. What is needed is a long-range, comprehensive plan that will take care of the growth not only this year, but into the future. This includes the requirement that builders of subdivisions and extra housing be required to make contributions to the school district to take care of the children who are going to be living in those houses. That is the only way we can begin to settle this problem and get the help that we need in the schools.

Windmills again

I read David Limbaugh's recent column, and I listened and heard the thundering hoofbeats of his great charger as he rode out to fight windmills.

Regulation needed

I am calling to answer the Speak Out question regarding why the pharmaceutical companies are not entitled to make whatever profit they would like to make. We must regulate the pharmaceutical industry for the same reason that we must regulate the price of electricity or the price of water. Some markets do not have the natural competition that would prohibit price gouging. Another example would be the automobile industry. If autos were priced too high, consumers would have an option of taking a bus, riding a bike or walking. But with health care, we have no choice. We must pay what they ask.

Worker's comp snafu

I am calling about worker's comp. I can't understand why Missouri can not get workman's comp worked out. We have been fighting worker's compensation for the last 4 and half months and can not get anything done. I think it is time for the politicians to start working for the ordinary working person instead of everything going in favor of lawyers. Let's get some worker's comp laws passed for the working people.

Wrong century

A pseudo-intellectual Speak Out caller seems to have a lot of trouble with the fact that our economic system is a mixed economy. We have elements of free enterprise with a degree of government regulation and some examples of what might be described as a welfare state. I think it all works well. The caller would obviously feel better if we had unrestricted survival-of-the-fittest capitalism. The caller was born in the wrong century and would have been happier in the 19th century, the age of the robber barons.

Didn't do it then

I don't know why we should believe Gephardt when he says if Democrats gain control of the house that he would seek consensus on issues with Republicans. He certainly didn't do it when the Democrats had control of the House.

Class sizes

I am calling about a Speak Out article that appeared Aug. 17 entitled bigger classes. As the number of students in a teacher's classroom increases the amount of individual attention for each child decreases. A lack of individual attention presents a variety of problems for our children. Common sense and an enormous collection of research studies support the assertion that decreased class size is directly correlated to increases in student learning. Do you want your kids to learn under optimum conditions or not?

Had his chance

Al Gore says if elected as president he will work every day for us. How can we believe that when the last eight years as vice president he has done very little? I think he has been hanging around the president a little too long.

It won't work

Despite what the media say, real people have always thought of Al Gore as a real person, a person with much substance. The latest harassment against Clinton won't work against Gore.

Not his own man

So now Al Gore is saying he is his own man and he promises a better, fairer, more prosperous America. If Al Gore was really his own man, he would have promised us a more moral and a more decent America, but he didn't. That just goes to prove one of two things: Either what Bill Clinton did Gore doesn't think was wrong, or Gore really isn't his own man and doesn't have the guts still yet to stand up and say what has been going for the last eight years in that White House was wrong. He is not his own man. He is never going to be.

Retirement funding

I've worked for the same company over 20 years. Eight percent of my wages go into a private retirement fund. Fifteen percent of my wages go into Social Security. If I were to retire today, my monthly payment for my retirement fund would be greater than my Social Security check even though almost twice as much money went into Social Security. In fact, most people my age group won't live long enough to withdraw the entire amount they contributed to Social Security.