GOP Policies

The breakdown of the health system, via the lack of trauma care, and the crisis in Medicare and Medicaid dramatically point out that the information President Clinton gave us immediately following his election two years ago was true. Health care was in trouble and in order to serve the needs of the population changes should be made.

Unfortunately some members of Congress chose to dispute his premise, and elected to do nothing. Now the solutions to the ongoing and increasing problems are in the hands of legislators who could be compared to Attila the Hun.

Pity the poor and uninsured, seniors, children, doctors and nurses and the community in general. We will all suffer.

DOROTHY CHAPMAN

San Clemente

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* The magnitude of the foolishness of Republican welfare reform--the block grant approach--will not become apparent until the next recession. What House Speaker Newt Gingrich and company don’t realize is that welfare guaranteed by the federal government achieves two very important goals during an economic downturn: It keeps the unfortunate from starving and it keeps everyone else from panicking.

As surely as night follows day, when state block grants run out during the next recession, there will be food riots and other civil unrest committed by a well-armed underclass on the brink of starvation, with nothing left to lose.

Making matters worse, the middle class, with no safety net beneath them, will tend to conserve whatever cash they have, leading to further economic contraction and still more unrest.

It happened before--we called it the Great Depression. It took the Republicans 60 years to crawl back into power after that debacle. How long will it take them after the next one?

PAUL J. GULINO

Santa Monica