Impact of Welfare Cuts

Your April 6 story on welfare recipient and AIDS patient Mary Cross was intended to evoke sympathy for her plight and to show the negative side of welfare reform. I agree that her situation is most unfortunate, but when I added up Cross’ benefits compliments of us taxpayers, I was appalled.

Cross and her children receive $1,946 per month tax free, as well as free medical care. The purported father of her children, instead of paying child support, receives $1,100 per month from us taxpayers as an “attendant” to help care for the family. Most certainly the children receive free breakfast and lunch at school, and the two special-needs children are probably enrolled in special education classes. There are many hard-working people who manage to make ends meet on far less than $2,000 a month, and they have to pay taxes on their earnings besides. To me, their story reinforced the reasons that welfare reform is needed.

KAREN McKAY

Avalon

I feel compassion for Cross. She is paying a big price for getting too close to the holy grails of liberal questing: sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll. And yet she only has her own actions to blame. She should thank taxpayers for picking up the tab for her excesses for so many years.

R.J. MILLER

Santa Monica