Moaning About Housing Costs

Your story on housing costs (Aug. 8) not only elicits no sympathy, but the lead picture of the young family in its home leaves a bitter aftertaste. I was drawn to the picture because it reminds me of my own family, both 20 years ago and today. Twenty years ago we were young, poor, living in small apartments in Orange County with mismatched older furniture, but with the same hopeful outlook on our faces as the Le family has. Someone must make those imitation wood, pseudo-Mediterranean coffee tables just for young marrieds, because we had the twin. Ours was bought used and passed on to others. Maybe that’s even it in the picture. What we didn’t have was a pile of TV/tuner/VCR/keyboard gadgetry sitting on the table.

Today we have just purchased several of the same components shown, which I am able to do at the age of 45, not 25, because we could not afford it then. Apparently, neither could Mr. and Mrs. Le, if it were not for the $450-a-month gift of the tax dollars of others that is bestowed upon them.

This family has done nothing wrong. It is our misguided system that is in error. Whatever happened to the ideal of living within one’s means? From the top, our federal “budget,” right on down to individual family units such as this one, it appears to have been abandoned in favor of the classic ethic of failure. Spend it now, make it later. And if you can spend somebody else’s, so much the better. Like all other inverted pyramid schemes, this one will collapse at some point.

If a person or group can fund their own life style, more power to them, whatever they may choose to do. But if they can’t, then for God’s sake quit expecting others to pay for it.

ROBERT C. HUNT

Santa Ana