Unfettered Letters

Tax rebates?

I bet a lot of factories in China are gearing up right now, just waiting for American consumers to receive their rebate checks from the government.

I think this will be a great stimulus for the economy, for American consumers to go into debt up to their eyeballs and for the U.S. government to continue to spend our children into bankruptcy. A great stimulus for the Chinese economy, that is!

Julie Whitley
Olathe

Debt and taxes

A better stimulus

Our government leaders are showing their incompetence once again. If they really wanted to boost the economy, they could do it by partially fixing Social Security.

Eliminate the income cap for taking FICA deductions. Make it just like Medicare — no limit.

Lower the tax rate for all payers, employers and employees, so that the cash inflow remains revenue neutral.

Most folks would be far more comfortable spending the sudden increase in income since they will realize it is permanent, not a one time fix. The high income folks won’t miss the money anyway, and we won’t go farther in debt.

Steve Bailey
Fairway

Unfair to future generations

Earlier this month, letter writer Peter Theoharis suggested that funding the U.S. government with deficit spending amounted to thievery (1/10). Other writers have disagreed, but he is correct.

Year after year, Americans receive more government services than they are willing to pay for and charge the balance to future generations. Any candidate who states the obvious, that we must spend less or tax more, commits political suicide.

If this generation of Americans is committed to spending more on itself than it is willing to pay for, it would be a more honorable course to form raiding parties to attack foreign countries and loot them of their treasures. We could use the booty to finance the difference between what we want and what we will pay for.

At least those who were attacked could make a choice to either give up the goods or defend themselves. As it is, we are taking from children and generations not yet born, a group unable to resist the plunder.

Jeff Maloney
Kansas City

Wrong on income, taxes

Once again I’m left to wonder where on earth Lewis Diuguid is coming from (1/16, Opinion, “Dr. King’s greatest dream still unfulfilled”).

I won’t even waste time commenting on his unsupported reasons for minority problems. He seldom lets facts interfere with his conclusions. However, I have to comment on these remarks: “The top 1 percent of Americans had income increases ... that exceeded the total income of the poorest 20 percent of people in this country ... People should be outraged.”

For what? Doesn’t he know that the top 10 percent of earners in this country pay 70 percent of the taxes? Doesn’t he know that the 50 percent and below of earners in this country pay only about 10 percent of the taxes collected?

Why on earth should anyone be outraged? The top earners are playing the tab. It took about five minutes online to find and confirm this information.

I guess if your bread and butter is leading the victim whine, facts are not something you should waste time on.

Pat Iverson
Prairie Village

Federal budget deficit

I have seen letters complaining about the federal budget deficit and felt the need to remind everyone that our budget deficit is shrinking at a faster-than-anticipated rate. Further, it is small in proportion to the GDP.

Having said all that, I would agree that we could reduce the deficit. We could cut unnecessary things like funding for the National Endowment for the Arts and Planned Parenthood. We could cut out the pension plans and other perks that our congressional representatives enjoy. We could eliminate all the “earmarks” for silly things like memorial statues.

But I would never — repeat never — support increasing taxes in an effort to decrease the deficit. It has been shown repeatedly that increasing taxes harms the economy, which, in turn, reduces federal tax revenue. On the other hand, lowering taxes has brought an increase in those revenues and has bolstered the economy.

Anyone who would like to pay additional taxes is free to do so. Perhaps what people really want is higher taxes on everyone else, but not on themselves.

Mary Goodwin
Olathe

Suprime loan problem

Regarding “American dreams built on a shaky foundation of subprime loans” (12/20, A-1): This mess was predicted years before the market imploded. The government, law enforcement and industry chose to ignore warnings.

When it was consumers complaining, it was a “civil matter.” When banks and investors screamed, it was “fraud.” Too late to prevent damage to the economy.

If any individual or group unconnected with the powerful real-estate and financial industries perpetrated this scam, they’d be in jail. Instead, the industry whined for the government to bail it out, packaged as “consumer protection,” of course.

Toxic loans, appraisal fraud, cozy builder-lender arrangements, illegal title insurance kickbacks and selling these junk loans as “investments” were the industry’s doing.

Consumers were not trained in finance and didn’t have skills/knowledge/access to perpetrate scams. Many were themselves defrauded. Some “homeowners” were flippers.

While I don’t sympathize with buyers who threw caution to the wind or were complicit in fraud, it’s clear to me the industry is the real perpetrator.

Cindy Schnackel
National secretary
Homeowners Against Deficient Dwellings
Norman, Okla.

Editor’s note: HADD is a national nonprofit organization with offices in Kansas and Arizona.

Credit woes

So “As losses mount from the subprime mortgage mess, some lenders already are raising credit card rates and tightening repayment terms to generate more fees out of consumers” (11/26, A-1, “Cardholders next to feel credit crisis”).

How compassionate! (Sarcasm alert.)

Steven Thomas
Kansas City

Deficits, paying for war

Ever-growing greed will someday bring the decline, if not the downfall, of the American economy, unless some unpleasant choices are made before it’s too late.

Recent letters bear evidence that controlling greed will not be easy. One writer implies that the only reason to place a surcharge on high incomes is that the Democrats want to penalize those who are “too rich.” How about appealing to patriotism and to fiscal responsibility in supporting a surcharge as a way of paying for a war and reducing federal budget deficits?

Before the Clinton administration’s surpluses, the last one was achieved in the last year of Lyndon Johnson’s administration. That was accomplished, in part, by a 10 percent surcharge on federal income taxes.

Lest we forget, in 1968-69 a war was on, and the American people accepted the need to sacrifice to finance the war.

Wars cannot be financed by tax cuts. What has happened to this sensible idea?

What has happened to good, old-fashioned Americanism, in which sacrifice for national purposes was to be shared — especially by the affluent and the privileged?

We need to begin comparing the mounting federal debt with the annual GDP and discuss what this portends for our future.

Niel Johnson
Independence

Fiscally responsible?

There are times when I read letters and think I live in another world. Lately, I’ve noticed fiscally responsible Republicans crawling out from underneath their rocks and beating on Democrats in Congress. Do they want to shift the blame for our runaway budget to Democrats?

And then I beam myself back to planet Earth and ask, where were these people over the last six years of this Republican administration? Where were these folks when this administration allowed “PAYGO” budgeting to expire? Where were these folks when this administration pushed our national debt $4.2 trillion deeper?

What scares me about these parallel political universes is that they exist. Until the citizens of this nation require both Democrats and Republicans to live in the real world, and punish either party for their lies and half-truths, we are destined to be driven further and further apart.

John Meyer
Blue Springs

Paying for college

As a mother of six (three currently in college), I feel I have to respond to the article “Debt soars with tuition” (10/1, A-1).

While no one can argue with the increase in college tuition, there certainly are ways to avoid this massive debt.

The choice of an affordable school versus “anywhere you want to go” is a first option. Having students work a part-time job in college seems like a reasonable expectation and a great experience on balancing their time.

The traditional four-year plan is what we have told our children we will pay for. Any “extras,” including living in your own apartment versus a dorm room, traveling abroad, taking more than four years to complete a degree — those are expenses the student can cover or get loans for.

It’s all about choices (isn’t everything in life?). Why would I want to set my child up for a four- to five-year college experience in a lifestyle that they could never afford as a new graduate? Better to bring them along, let them have some responsibility and earn it. Then as the finer things in life come along, they will appreciate them!

Tina R. Gaughan
Kansas City

To the young woman with a law degree and $160,000 in student loans, one must ask how a highly educated person got into such a financial hole. Her desire to serve as a legal aide is admirable, but knowing the compensation she is likely to receive in this career, why would she accumulate such a burden? What happened to personal fiscal responsibility? Did the educational system fail her?

Virgil Smit
Overland Park

U.S. government debt

In 1980, the U.S. federal debt was less than $1 trillion, which was an accumulation of deficit spending from the beginning of this nation.

As of this month, the taxpayers are obligated for a total U.S. federal debt of $9 trillion. And this is constantly increasing. It should be noted that a large mount of this debt is going for waste and fraud.

The ironic part of this situation is that most of the 100 senators and 435 representatives who put us in this predicament keep asking voters to re-elect them to continue their stewardship over this financial disaster. Surprisingly, the voters comply by sending them back to Washington.

Apparently the politicians have no shame about how inefficiently they have run the government over the years, and the voters have no clue as to what to do about it.

How about public financing for all federal elections and term limits?

Donald G. Siedenburg
Shawnee

Debt out of control

When I see our national debt soar out of control from over-spending — and the majority of our population having a “greedy-grabby-grubby” attitude in handling their money and the money of others — I wonder where this way of life is taking us. Perhaps to another depression, like that of the 1930s?

Why can’t our leaders turn this bad government situation around before it breaks us wide open? Where are our country’s patriots?

E. Leo Burnett
Prairie Village