PUBLIC FORUM : GIVE IT BACK.

There is only one reason why our Social Security is in trouble and there is only one solution to get it out of trouble.

When Social Security came into existence, the intention and purpose was for the ``working employee'' to have a retirement benefit at retirement age. The money that is deposited into the Social Security fund comes only from the employee (a percentage of his wage earnings) and is matched by the employer.

But through the years our federal lawmakers have diversified this fund in dispersing it into welfare programs that have come into law. These other welfare programs have been growing and have been siphoning the monies away from the retiree.

Our Social Security Fund pays benefits to those who have never worked, and therefore never paid into the system. We also have new immigration laws today that include benefits to new immigrants if they show, even at the age of 50, that they are not medically able to work. And if they have children under the age of 21 they also qualify for a college education under Social Security.

The only solution is to give Social Security back to the working people.

- Nina Trotta-Sutton

Burbank

More important now

In 1994, the biggest problem facing this country was the threat to our Social Security system, according to Congress, especially Newt Gingrich.

Today we have a federal budget surplus. However and whatever we're doing to achieve this surplus doesn't matter. Let's keep on doing it. The Social Security system is probably more important today than it ever has been.

Clinton proposes to pretty much leave the present system intact while attempting to augment retirement income with a brand new money source. He would use some of our federal bureau surplus to maintain our present Social Security system.

The Republicans are calling for a 10 percent across-the-board tax cut. This size of income tax cut wouldn't amount to much rebate for most people. If we let the Social Security system go broke, we will all be paying a lot more taxes to build it up again.

- Don Zurich

Granada Hills

Proud of success

We in Pierce College's Agriculture Department, have and will continue to push for excellence in education. That is where the future of these young minds are. UC Davis has recently awarded us ``Mentor'' in veterinary medicine, as we have the highest success rate of any two-year program in the state. We currently have 61 students who have gone through our program and into schools of veterinary medicine.

We are very proud of the success rate of our students and will continue to push for academic excellence and hands-on experience which is so greatly demanded by industry and ignored by those whose financial greed supersedes their own personal ethics.

- Leland S. Shapiro

Director, Pre-Veterinary Science Program

Pierce College

Quotas not needed

Re: ``Join students to protest Proposition 209 fallout'' (Daily News, March 3)

We live in a competitive world; ideally, the best should rise to the top and be rewarded for their talents and abilities, regardless of ethnicity, gender or any other irrelevant qualities. However, there have always been and will always be prejudices and biases among human beings and no law has ever or will ever change that.

In the past, many ethnic groups have overcome unfair treatment, certainly not without struggle, but ultimately to their own betterment through perseverance and hard work. Creating and enforcing laws requiring quotas only makes things worse by calling attention to differences, reinforcing feelings of ``us and them'' and endorsing behaviors those laws were created to outlaw by excluding others who are deserving.

If we instead would do what we do as best we can, take responsibility for ourselves and our actions and not expect government to create laws that prohibit everything we don't like or think is unfair, we would all, eventually, be much better off. Laws don't change attitudes, behavior does.

- Nick DeGregorio

Van Nuys

Law abiding penalized

As required by law, we keep our unaltered dogs behind 6-foot fences or on leashes at any time they're not confined. We obey the laws with our pets, pay the license fees and keep their vaccinations current.

We and the thousands of responsible dog owners like us are not the cause for producing unwanted animals. We agree there is a pet overpopulation problem, and blame that on the irresponsible owners who can't or won't control their pets.

So why is it that we, the people who are following the laws already, will be penalized for what could potentially happen before it happens?

Fining responsible owners is wrong unless they have broken the law. And those are the people who will be affected by this law, the people who are already doing their part by being responsible. The people who don't care and don't train and keep their dogs off the street, the people who abandon them or abuse them until the dog runs away and won't let anyone near it, will not pay for any of this. They won't have to because we responsible owners will be paying and paying . ....

- Mark and Claire Haber

Tarzana

It's the owners

Unlike cynical letter writer R. Walton ``Live with it or move'' (Public Forum, Feb. 24 ), I place the fault of annoyance by dogs on man not beast.

And while I feel sorry for those attacked by two pit bulls, I agree with Jackie David, spokeswoman for Animal Services, who stated ``We're probably dealing with irresponsible pet owners.''

- Eddie Cress

Los Angeles

Killing not answer

Re: ``Crews work to rid streets of strays'' (Daily News, Feb. 21)

It is extraordinarily disappointing that the mayor's solution to too many dogs is more members of the Special Enforcement Unit. Most of the dogs captured by these people are simply summarily killed. It's really a unit whose purpose is to kill.

When will this city and its taxpayers learn that killing is not the solution to pet overpopulation? Over the past 20 years the city has killed over 1 million cats and dogs and yet the pet overpopulation problem is worse. When will the taxpayers really understand that $4 million of their hard-earned money is spent each year by the animal regulation department just to kill?

Neutering and spaying is the solution. Why not take one year's killing budget and spend it to neuter city residents' cats and dogs - free? The next year the shelters would be denied 50 percent of the animals they have now.

Furthermore, why hasn't the city waged a very strong campaign to get animals adopted? Why not be more user-friendly in the shelters and you would see the public come in.

- Lois Newman

Los Angeles

Give us a break

Now that we have completed a year of showing proof of insurance when registering our cars, where do we go from here? It is assumed that the thrust of this mandate is to drastically reduce the number of uninsured motorists. Further assuming that this has been accomplished, there are many of us eagerly awaiting a decrease in our insurance premiums.

If this does not happen, it appears the beneficiaries of this will be the insurance companies. Is it time for us to contact our insurance commissioner or our insurance companies?

- Fred Osterheldt

Woodland Hills

Now do the alleys

I for one am happy about the regular weekly sweeping we receive in front of our homes.

I have lived in West Hills in the same house for over 40 years and not once has a city street sweeper swept the alley behind my home. I toured the other alleys in the area and all have unswept leaves, trash and discarded debris that should be cleaned up on a regular schedule.

The city should cite homeowners for dumping the trash and debris and the city should sweep the alleys on a regular also.

- J.C. Miller

West Hills

First thing we do . . .

Pasquale Goglia's letter ``Maybe we need lawyers'' (March 1) is well taken, but the heading is way off base. The biggest problem today i s too many lawyers.

The ACLU and other lawyers block every ballot measure mandated by vote if it doesn't suit their agenda. Sleazy barristers take the part of illegals and criminals against law enforcement people doing their duty because they know that municipalities will pay off rather than got to court.

Most of our elected officials are lawyers, getting their feet in the public trough. Why? Because that's where the money is.

When one ponders why a ballot measure or a piece of legislation becomes a novella of legalese mumbo jumbo, one suddenly comes to the realization that these items are authored by the same people who refer to a 40-page document as a brief. The bard was right!

- Freddie Steese

Lancaster

Wrong prescription

Rep. William M. Thomas, R-Bakersfield, stated in a Feb. 24 Daily News Opinion article that Clinton's proposal to raise the Medicare eligibility age to 67 would not fix Medicare. Actually, it would add over a million uninsured people to the already huge uninsured population.

Thomas' solution is that the seniors be given financial assistance to buy private insurance. Hasn't Thomas heard how private insurance has refused care, cut corners, raised premiums and withdrew from coverage of Medicare patients because they weren't profitable?

And speaking of costs and profits, what about the cost of of all the advertising, payments of stockholder dividends and huge executive salaries? The overhead of private insurance is as much as 25 percent of gross, before one cent is paid for patient care. Medicare's cost of operations is as little as 2.5 percent.

What this country really needs is a national health program which will care for everyone. This means moving the Medicare eligible age down, not up, so that eventually everyone will have Medicare. Huge advertising expenses will disappear, there won't be dozens of CEO salaries to pay and the money saved could be used for patient care.

- Dr. Melvin H. Kirschner

Van Nuys