Bush lampooned, Clinton skates by
While Mike Luckovich has been a talented cartoonist, his blinding hatred of all things Republican has turned him into a shill for the Democratic Party. His cartoon in the AJC on May 19, wherein he mocks all GOP candidates for Jeb Bush’s responses to the media’s hypothetical questions about the Iraq war, is the latest example. Incredibly, what Luckovich conveniently chooses to ignore is Hillary Clinton’s documented support for the 2003 decision to invade Iraq and her refusal to face the media since she announced her candidacy for the presidency last month, thereby preventing reporters from asking her if she now regrets her decision.
DONNIE COKER, ATLANTA
Bleak future looms for Generation X
“Study: Views of retirement differ” (News, May 19) discussed the retirement future of Generation X. Many have large student loan debt and little savings and little hope employers will provide them a pension. Our frugal employment structure today and the reluctance of a conservative Congress to fund Social Security and Medicare provides a gloomy picture. They will be the first generation to experience a drop in living standards relative to their parents.
In the meantime, a small percentage of Americans are seeing huge gains in their wealth as stock markets surge and tax rates remain low. Surely we can enact reasonable policies to avert this impending collapse. Removing the cap on Social Security earnings would be a start to ensure the fund is viable to help these young people as they approach retirement. Reforming our tax system to ensure rich people don’t grow their wealth at the expense of the rest of the country would cure a lot of ills. Providing incentives to employers to provide pension plans for their employees would be a major help. Increasing the minimum wage to a level that provides security for workers would stimulate the economy and encourage savings for the future.
Unfortunately, these ideas require soul searching by those elected officials who seem bent on austerity regardless of the results. The trickle-down concept they are still relying on has proven false time and time again. We really need courage and new thinking to rebuild the country for everyone, not just the privileged few.
TOM MCMANUS, ROSWELL
Tax funds tapped to ‘honor’ military
I am shocked there is very little coverage and hence, little outrage, on the Atlanta Falcons taking $1.05 million of your/our tax dollars to promote the military and military service at NFL games between 2011 and 2014 (“Falcons were paid $1 million to honor military ‘Hometown Heroes,’” AJC.com, May 11). The Falcons were the greediest of them all. What we thought were patriotic gestures were nothing more than a continuation of the NFL and Falcons revenue stream at the expense of taxpayers.
WILLIAM H. BRIGHT, ATLANTA
