To the editor: Contributing author Veronique de Rugy is appropriate in pointing her finger at each political events (“Republicans and Democrats are playing the blame game as the national debt explodes,” Aug. 27). However as typical, she lumps welfare and entitlements collectively, thereby giving entitlements a pejorative which means. The implication is that Social Safety and Medicare funds are authorities handouts.
There is no such thing as a doubt {that a} dwindling workforce and an rising cohort of retirees are creating an imbalance between the supply of monies flowing into the belief funds and the funds to these eligible to obtain funds from the funds. And although unsaid, the imbalance represents a generational switch of wealth.
De Rugy argues that, “Sustaining these advantages with out crushing taxes was all the time going to imply plenty of debt.”
This means that the one answer is to chop advantages. Why are taxes all the time crushing? Crushing to whom? Definitely to not the oligarchs and overpaid CEOs. Eradicating the cap on contributions to Social Safety would definitely assist, as would imposing a tax on different sources of earnings, resembling capital features, that the rich get pleasure from.
There must be multiple technique to clear up this drawback aside from slicing advantages.
Martin Parker, Thousand Oaks
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To the editor: There’s an outdated saying that goes, “When you don’t know historical past, you’re condemned to repeat it.” Nicely, I’m not an economist, however I’ve studied the nationwide debt beginning in 1945 after we have been popping out of World Struggle II and due to the Nice Melancholy and the price of the warfare, we had an enormous debt. Nonetheless, we additionally had historically high taxes.
Although we have been serving to fund the re-building of Europe, combating the Korean Struggle, constructing the Interstate Freeway System, placing a person on the moon, combating the Vietnam Struggle and plenty of different bills, the nationwide debt-to-GDP ratio was quickly going down — due to excessive taxes primarily on the wealthy. Then in 1986, President Reagan and the Republicans minimize taxes primarily for the rich. Virtually immediately the nationwide debt started to rise at a faster fee, with an exception in the course of the Clinton administration when it flattened.
With additional tax cuts — together with the Trump Republicans’ One Huge Stunning Invoice and their unfunded expenditures, just like the warfare on Iran — the nationwide debt has grown exponentially. We’re borrowing ever extra money to pay the curiosity on the $40 trillion we owe the world. It’s a pending time bomb.
As for the companies we offer strange Individuals, like Medicare, Medicaid and Social Safety, a part of the issue is the cap on taxes for the wealthy.
Herb Adelman, Del Mar
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To the editor: It’s all the time amusing to see right-wing commenters referring to “entitlements.” Do they imply common healthcare, which just about each different industrialized nation offers? Are they referring to Social Safety in a rustic the place the price of dwelling has elevated quickly within the final 20 years, however the federal and most states’ minimal hourly wages haven’t risen to satisfy it?
Suggesting that latest tax cuts that lowered income by 2% of GDP are irrelevant (and ignoring the spectacular development of decreasing prime earnings tax charges over many a long time), De Rugy loses all credibility when she suggests the navy finances is poised to shrink relative to GDP. She’s apparently unaware that our president is requesting a 42% increase in military spending. We reside in a rustic that already spends more on the military than the subsequent six highest-military-spending international locations mixed.
De Rugy is correct that our legislatures’ priorities want to alter, as does our rhetoric. Healthcare and Social Safety are fundamentals, requirements — not entitlements.
Dave Haberman, Woodland Hills
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To the editor: The one approach that De Rugy sees to sort out our ever-increasing nationwide debt is to wring extra sacrifice from already overburdened working Individuals. Our social security web is already tattered compared to different superior nations, however De Rugy chastises Republicans for failing to “really reform welfare and entitlement spending” and abolish Obamacare.
The flexibility of the rich to form federal coverage and tax legal guidelines of their favor has led to the present state of affairs during which the richest 10% of U.S. households owns 68.3% of personal wealth, whereas the underside 50% owns a minuscule 2.5%. But that by no means appears to be sufficient for the ten%. Once they fail, they get the federal government to bail them out. Then they flip round and blame the nationwide debt on Social Safety and Medicare.
There are numerous methods to get severe about decreasing the nationwide debt and likewise improve the well-being of on a regular basis Individuals: Shrink spending on bloated protection methods and unjustifiable international wars; finish tax subsidies to thriving industries like Huge Agriculture and fossil fuels; and require that wealthy Individuals and firms pay their fair proportion of taxes. Above all, make creating good jobs with respectable pay a nationwide precedence. Amazon staff deserve respectable working circumstances and wages that don’t have to be supplemented by SNAP advantages. Rising their earnings would increase the financial system extra successfully than anything Jeff Bezos might do.
De Rugy champions the privileges of the wealthy whereas undermining primary help for working Individuals. That isn’t a recipe for a affluent nation, not to mention a only one.
Grace Bertalot, Anaheim
