To The Editor:
Here is the text of a recent submission I sent to Republican gubernatorial candidate Bruce Lisman’s website. I will inform you of his response should one be forthcoming.
Mr. Lisman,
1. After graduating from the University of Vermont in 1965, Uncle Sam requested my services for two years. When I returned home in 1967 to a small, rural Vermont town, I went to work at a minimum wage job doing construction. I had not decided what to do with that bachelor’s degree I barely earned at school. With that minimum wage, I bought a new 1967 VW Bug with a set of winter tires and a radio. I lived with some friends in an apartment and ate three meals a day. At the end of the week I usually had enough loose change to go to Gallagher’s on Friday and Saturday nights if I could stand the pain.
Now, a minimum wage would not provide the earner with even one of the necessary living necessities. Business owner incomes have steadily increased but not the employees.
I believe that the overburdened welfare system, increased drug abuse and domestic violence are in a great measure due to the refusal of employers to pay a living wage.
Your thoughts?
2. When I graduated from the University of Vermont in 1967, I had $195 in my checking account and I did not owe one penny for my college degree. I paid my own way through the University of Vermont; no scholarships, no grants and no money from home. I had a paper route when I was 8 years old and worked every summer, and during the winters I worked weekends and vacations at a ski area. I had saved and could earn enough each year to make it through. It is impossible for a Vermont student to finance their own education now. The cost of education has risen vastly beyond the inflation rate while low and middle income wage earners have lost ground. It seems that the college administration and directors have been consumed with building edifices for themselves and not with making a quality education available to Vermont students and at affordable cost.
Your thoughts?
Steve Joslin
Graniteville
