THE PUBLIC MIND: CUT THE PORK AND LEGISLATIVE WAST TO BALANCE FEDERAL BUDGET

To the Editor:

Regarding a letter from Sen. Christopher Bond: By postal carrier I received a form letter, written at my tax expense, mailed at my expense, and it insulted me very much, of course, at my expense. On the first page of the correspondence, four paragraphs from the top, in the explanation about the senator's plan to eliminate the deficit, he had a sentence that was dangerous and disturbing to me. And I quote:

"Reduce civilian workforce by five percent."

I guess my ultimate question would be, why in the world would he want to reduce the civilian workforce? My goodness, doesn't he have any conscience at all, doesn't he realize as I write this, there are nine million unemployed in the United States. Most certainly, a lot of them have lost their jobs permanently. Is this the reason so many of the factories and the production of services have left the United States, with the senator and the majority of the legislators and the previous two administrations in favor of cutting the workforce?

I, along with about 200 other civilians, some of whom are unemployed, have a much more favorable and impressive idea: limit the size of the legislative body, their functions, their salaries and most definitely the perks.

Our suggestions:

1. Have one senator and two representatives per state.

2. Roll back the salaries to $80,000 per year.

3. Eliminate all perks, the postage, the travel, one home deduction, do or pay to have your taxes prepared, provide your own medical and health insurance ... in other words get along on your income like your constituents. Limit federal payments of salaries of legislators' office personnel to three per state. The senator should be able to do this; most offices have had to cut back drastically why can't they?

4. We have begun working on the above and limiting terms to one. Understand this message ... most all people are angry with legislators.

I guess I have another question: when the senator suggests the cutbacks, i.e., growth caps growths on veterans and Medicare recipients, five year freeze on domestic spending, I noticed that he put a one year freeze on his own entitlement ... I mean salary. Cut funding of Congress by 25 percent: Doesn't this mean that these people have to pay more out of the pocket for services? If not, please explain to me why not. Does this not target a certain group of people, those needing assistance the most? Would not the tax on all the people be a fairer way to do it than target a few of those that can't afford a representative/lobbyist to represent them? I guess I'm just naive, but I really thought that was why we elected these people. I personally believe it would be cheaper on all the people to just hire a lobbyist to jockey with the administration and eliminate all the legislative body.

As you can see from this long letter, I am very disturbed with the goings on in Congress, and believe me, I'm not the only one. On one issue I do agree that a whole host of programs and services should be cut out or limited. But just start with the pork and the legislative body.

Those of us outside the beltway surely wish we had representation.

Chris Godwin

Oran