From the Star Tribune this weekend:

Many thanks to Patricia Lopez for her careful and well-written article on Al Franken’s campaign (Star Tribune, July 21.) Franken’s “kitchen table” tax relief proposals that Lopez describes in her article are thoughtful, workable and welcome.

Americans need a solid basis for retirement now that pensions are not an option. My husband and I together have worked for almost 90 years for about nine different employers; we have one pension plan, worth about $10,000 per
year. The 401(U) plans that Al proposes would be an important step in the direction of more secure retirement savings.

My children are both adults now, but how we could have used Al’s proposals for family-friendly employment policies. I can remember driving in a nervous sweat, breaking speed laws because I had to get to my children when I was working for an employer whose outdated but still available policy manual included a rule that pregnant employees must be fired.

My husband is now the primary support for his 94-year-old mother who is in a nursing home suffering from dementia. Al’s proposal for help for caregivers sounds wonderful to us.

Al is a good and thoughtful man; he’ll be a great senator for Minnesota.

ROSEMARY SCHWEDES, EDINA

This entry was posted on Monday, July 28th, 2008 at 18:58 and is filed under Letters to the Editor. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.