Poverty in America

* Jonathan Freedman’s emphasis (Commentary, Sept. 26-29)) on helping the children of poor families is an emotional and skillful ploy to redistribute wealth. He has overlooked a way for poor families to pull themselves out of poverty themselves, however.

These days, when nothing is none of our business, I modestly propose licensing parenthood. Children cause financial poverty. They are expensive.

Irresponsible parenthood can impose literally hundreds of thousands of dollars of obligation onto government by way of education, medicine, police, courts, jails, public housing and so forth.

Parenthood licenses would be issued to healthy, drug-free, financially secure adults for the most part, with a lottery for the poor who will need welfare. Unlicensed children would be considered contraband, for which their parents would sacrifice their homes and assets in a similar fashion to drug dealers. The children would be taken away, to be assured adequate nutrition, nurturing and all the other beautiful benefits only government can provide, according to Freedman.

RICK WIGGINS

Pasadena

* It appears that we are in an era in which the rich are getting richer and the middle class is getting poorer and the poor are sinking deeper into poverty.

There was a time just 50 years ago when, if you were to expropriate the wealth of every millionaire in the world and distribute it equally among the roughly 2 1/2 billion persons who then inhabited the Earth, each would get such a small amount that the effort would not be worthwhile.

Today, however, if we were to confiscate the wealth of every multimillionaire and billionaire in the world (leaving each with a paltry $100 million) and distribute it among the world’s population, which is now over 5 1/2 billion, each would receive an amount which to most would represent a fortune. I do not, of course, advocate such an action, but I do believe that unless we address the need to provide education and training leading to economic security for all people, we may be headed for big trouble.

DAVID A. MARCUS

Laguna Hills