Letters to the Editor.

Progressive Caucus Backs Housing

Your May Comment ("The Housing Crunch") was well done. It helped show the housing deficit as the perpetual and growing problem it is.

That is why the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) offered an alternative budget proposal this year that would have substantially increased the federal commitment to affordable housing.

For example, the CPC proposed more than doubling funding for Section 8 vouchers. The CPC proposed nearly $4 billion for public housing capital improvements. This was $1 billion more than the Administration. (The current modernization backlog in public housing is $20 billion and growing approximately $2 billion per year.)

The CPC budget also included funding for preserving affordable housing and $2 billion for a new program to create more permanently affordable housing.

The Progressive Caucus will continue to promote policies that benefit the vast majority of Americans rather than merely the status quo, which has a funny way of heaping largesse on those who need it least.

I invite your readers to visit the CPC web site to learn more about our activities. The address is: www.house.gov/defazio/progressivecaucus.

Congressman Peter DeFazio, Democrat of Oregon Chairman, Congressional Progressive Caucus

Dot.com Rich Don't Get It

When I read the article "The Invisible Poor" in the magazine section of The New York Times, I was thoroughly disgusted. After I was finished, I sat down and sketched an outline of an essay that critiqued this piece about these seemingly invisible people. Unable to finish it, I was pleasantly surprised to read Barbara Ehrenreich's article, "The Vision-Impaired Rich" (May issue), about the same story.

I live in Seattle and happen to know some of the new millionaires who have made it big in the new dot.com era. My wealthy companions are often shocked when I quote Jim Hightower that 80 percent of Americans make less than $50,000 a year.

They don't want to hear that most of the new money comes from pure speculation, and they can't imagine that the technology allowing them to be rich doesn't really improve the lives or happiness of most Americans. And then, at the end of the night, after our drinks and discussions, I, the schoolteacher, pick up the tab.

So thanks to Ehrenreich for writing and expressing what many people are thinking.

Steven M. Quesinberry Seattle, Washington

Family-Friendly Work

Joan Williams's book Unbending Gender: Why Family and Work Conflict and What to Do...