Letters to the Editor

Payday lending is echo of company scrip

Back in the 1950s as I was trying to earn money in the summer to help with college expenses in the fall, I worked for a printing firm alongside two little old ladies, bent almost double from the hard labor they had experienced even as children when there were no child labor laws.

Also, as I was growing up, I remember Tennessee Ernie Ford singing, "I owe my soul to the company store" — expressing the enslaving cycle of payday money going to take care of past bills and workers never getting ahead.

Now there are payday lenders charging exorbitant interest rates so the poor end up borrowing money over and over again to pay their debt. One loan calls for another to pay the last loan.

Lately, I've read of a possible interest cap of 36 percent. Granted that 36 percent is better than 72 percent but where did the "low" rate of 36 percent come from- Doesn't sound like a low figure to me.

As Americans we can be proud that in the past, laws have been passed to aid the helpless, but we need to be ever vigilant to have laws and policies to help the poor and abased.

The golden rule that Jesus taught, "to do unto others as you would have them do unto you," is an excellent guide for any age and time.

I am only one person with one voice and one pen, but I ask for mercy for the poor, and I implore the powers that be to think long and hard about this situation and act to make changes for the better.

Patricia Chafee

Afton

-----

City Council should have been prepared

One of the questions on last November's referendum could have been, "Are you willing for the city of Waynesboro to spend $1.2 million on stormwater management, and if so, how would you propose the city finance this project-" (with options listed).

Did someone put the cart before the horse by asking for the people's vote without any idea at all how to proceed if the vote was favorable- One council member wants to wait six months to see how the city's finances stack up before moving forward. I, and I imagine many others who voted yes, would have expected to see work actually being done by that time.

Back to the financing issue, is it really fair to tax residents who will neither benefit from, or were never a cause of flooding in the first place- I say no.

Lyle Palmer

Waynesboro

-----

Someone should speak for unborn babies

I was disappointed that seemingly none of the churches in our area observed Sanctity of Human Life Sunday, Jan. 20, not even with a bulletin announcement or special prayer for the more than 50 million babies that have been killed in their mothers' wombs since 1973.

The latest statistics from the National Right to Life Committee show that there were 48,589,993 abortions from 1973 to 2006 in this country, and that we are still killing babies through abortion at the rate of 1.2 million per year.

As the late Dr. D. James Kennedy said on an earlier Sanctity of Human Life Sunday, "It's a baby ... there's never a time from conception on when it is not a baby" (regardless of what Planned Parenthood and the media tell us).

Proverbs 31:8 says to "Open your mouth for the speechless, in the cause of all who are appointed to die." The preborn babies are speechless and we need to open our mouths for them.

Proverbs 24:12 says, "If you say, 'Surely we did not know this,' does not He who weighs the hearts consider it- He who keeps your soul, does He not know it- And will He not render to each man according to his deeds-"

We're supposed to be a Christian nation, but seemingly we've lost our sense of what's right and wrong. How can it be that we cannot even take time out one day a year to pray about this situation- We need to wake up and speak up.

Robert C. Nelson

Afton