1/12 Readers write
Ways to tackle nation’s increasing debt
Our nation has huge financial problems. Total debt exceeds $34 trillion. Last year’s revenue was $4.4 trillion and spending was $6.1 trillion. Last year was a good year. It gets much uglier hereafter.
Working as an attorney/CPA, I know our tax system is a mess that fails to pick up a lot of revenue. Thus, I’ve come up with a much simpler system that produces balanced budgets in non-recession years by tying tax rates to spending. Federal politicians would be forced to do what state and local politicians must do — balance the budget.
I’ve drafted a bill designed to significantly reduce spending by gradually pushing back the Social Security normal retirement age and the Medicare eligibility age to 70 and then adjusting based on changing life expectancy. I’m now working on a bill to reasonably reduce other entitlements while encouraging marriage and two-parent households.
Politicians are not going to get it done. It’s up to the people.
ALLEN BUCKLEY, ATLANTA
Inflation may be mostly dropping, but prices aren’t
One of the biggest questions being asked by everyone from economists to the White House is this: If the economy, by every measure, is in great shape and getting better by the day, then why are people so glum and grumpy about it? I think the answer is so simple that I am beginning to wonder on what merits those economic analysts even have their jobs.
We went through a rough bout with supply-chain issues and high inflation, which caused the prices of many things to go up a lot. But inflation is largely going down, which means that prices aren’t going to go up at the rate that they were, but they’re not going to come back down either and that angers people. Also, even though there has been job and wage growth, I’m pretty certain those two factors merely cancel out the effects of higher prices, which means that we’re actually right back where we started as far as what we can afford.
ARTHUR SAGINIAN, SANTA CLARITA, CALIF.
