I am disappointed in the Reform Party. Thus far, about all that presidential candidates Ross Perot and Richard Lamm have to offer are attacks on “entitlements” but they propose no clear plan to replace Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. In fact, Social Security, a true entitlement paid for by employees and employers, has been a success for 50 years and is projected to show a surplus for at least 20 more years. Before Social Security poor healthy retired people had limited options: move in with relatives, take lodging in a cheap boarding house or hotel, go to a county poor farm, or live on the streets. Does the Reform Party want to return to that sad state of affairs?

If Reform, Republican, and Democratic parties are sincere about reducing the national debt, they should drop their preoccupation with “entitlements” and consider hard-nosed reductions in the current defense budget. (Sens. Snowe and Cohen just did the opposite of what I am suggesting when they voted to add 13 billion to the Pentagon’s request for military spending.) Take the total defense expenditures of possible “enemies” — Iran, Iraq, Cuba, Russia, North Korea, China and Syria. Why do we spend more on defense than all of them combined? Why does the CIA need over 30 billion when the Cold War is over? Why do we have troops still stationed in Japan and Europe half a century after the end of World War II? Why has Congress recently chopped funds from Head Start, clean water, public schools, and the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, etc.?

To those who aspire to serve in Washington: If you want my vote, place children, the poor, the homeless, the sick, and the environment before excess planes, bombs, submarines, and spy networks. Arthur A. Dole Trenton