Wednesday, February 16, 2011

February 15, 2011 Debating the President’s Budget



To the Editor:
President Obama should be commended for his long-term vision to bring down the deficit and to invest in our future. Slow and steady has always been safer than its opposite, and any sting arising out of the president’s proposed budget would not come all at once.
If the president hopes for bipartisan approval of his budget, however, he is guilty of wishful thinking. His opponents wasted no time in criticizing the budget proposal for not going far enough. Instead they are fighting for deep, quick cuts on just about everything, except, of course, on anything that would inconvenience corporations or the rich.
The president’s opponents remain focused like a laser beam on making him a one-term president. They will continue to buck his proposals, and their tactics to bring him down are likely to intensify as 2012 approaches.
It now becomes more urgent than ever that people take two steps back from their venom and anger and familiarize themselves, objectively, with the issues of the day. The result might be something new across America — people thinking for themselves, which is substantially more productive than being told what to think.
Patricia A. Weller
Emmitsburg, Md., Feb. 15, 2011
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To the Editor:
Politicians of both parties — and President Obama is the latest shameful example — congratulate themselves for making hard decisions and being grown-ups when taking the ax to social service programs. To me, real courage would consist of making millionaires feel at least some of the budget pain.
There is no reason for home heating, student aid or community block grants to be cut while there is a futile war in Afghanistan that enriches military contractors, a Pentagon budget that encourages fraud, subsidies for oil companies and a system that encourages corporations and financial institutions to avoid paying taxes.
I long for the day when I read in the news: “The burden of this year’s budget has fallen disproportionately on the state’s wealthiest, least vulnerable citizens.”
Rick Winston
Adamant, Vt., Feb. 15, 2011
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To the Editor:
It would take a Dickens to describe the moral squalor to which our nation is about to succumb: starving the most basic needs of the poor, heat for their homes as well as treatment for their physical and mental health and the education of their children, while at the same time feeding the richest of the rich with money they do not need and will not spend.
Or perhaps, with a Tea Party that demands an even greater starvation diet, Lewis Carroll is the more appropriate author.
Meanwhile, alas, no one reads.
Leslie Epstein
Brookline, Mass., Feb. 15, 2011
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To the Editor:
Re “The Freedom Alliance,” by David Brooks (column, Feb. 11):
You cannot have a serious discussion about cutting the deficit without addressing the revenue side. Rather than decimating valuable federal programs, wherever wealthy Americans have failed to pay their fair share, we have to raise their taxes: income tax, estate tax, corporate tax, everything should be on the table. It’s time that rich people gave something back to the country that allowed them to prosper.
David Rawson
Brooklyn, Feb. 11, 2011
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To the Editor:
David Brooks is right to salute “courageous senators” now quietly at work on ways to reform Social Security and Medicare. As beneficiaries of those two programs, we have this version of courage to commend to them: Tell us retired Americans what sacrifices we should make in order to ensure our children and grandchildren’s access to these benefits. Begin with canceling those tax breaks to the superrich.
Ask us in the middle class to accept some income-adjusted cuts and some tax increases. Stop worrying about getting us to vote for you if you tell us the truth about our national budgets. Treat neither national defense nor entitlements as sacred. Then treat us as adults who will sacrifice as necessary for the good of the country and our descendants. But do not yield to those budget hawks who want to pull us all back to the early 1930s.
Donald W. Shriver Jr.
Peggy L. Shriver
New York, Feb. 11, 2011
The writers are, respectively, president emeritus of the Union Theological Seminary and a former assistant general secretary of the National Council of Churches.
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To the Editor:
Entitlement spending, as noted in David Brooks’s column, includes Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. Mr. Brooks reminds us that all should and must be part of the difficult discussions about budget choices. His singular categorical omission that can in so many ways also be considered an entitlement is military spending. No serious talk of budget reductions can leave out defense spending.
Joseph Esposito
Bedford, Mass., Feb. 11, 2011
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To the Editor:
Re “Eat the Future,” by Paul Krugman (column, Feb. 14):
The mere mention of the deficit gives me a headache. As a 17-year-old, I have no control over how politicians spend my money (that is, the money I have yet to earn) since I cannot yet vote. All I can do is sit and watch as politicians “eat the future,” because they are afraid to make the tough political decision to actually cut spending, since it could jeopardize their chances for re-election.
Stop borrowing from the future. We might not be able to stop you now, but we do turn 18 eventually.
Kathleen Sullivan
Ossining, N.Y., Feb. 14, 2011

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