Duh? Not!
I must reply to the letter from Fred Fogel in your newspaper (“Cut spending,” Your Views, Dec. 2).
The federal government has been cutting spending for years now and what do you have? Here are only three:
1. More homeless people, not only in East Hawaii, but in Honolulu, California, Boston, Chicago.
Everywhere I go, there are more and more homeless. And this problem is not going away and in fact is growing. And, I know that U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development funds, which are the main source of our county housing monies, have been squeezed each year for decades. Is a small income tax cut really worth this?
2. Lower Social Security and disability income raises to recipients each year.
The source of these funds is our payroll tax (which I have paid with every single paycheck since I was age 20 in 1964 and still pay now that I am 73 and self-employed). You might ask, how is it that with this big income tax cut passed by the U.S. Senate no one is even talking about the payroll tax most of us regular (not rich) people pay — and pay, and pay, and pay?
And while talking about the payroll tax not even being touched upon, they already are talking about lowering Social Security even more to pay for the new, big tax cut.
Let’s see: an income tax cut of less than $1,000 for me and lower and lower Social Security income as I grow into my 80s and 90s. How is this a win? How is this good?
3. Higher Medicare premiums plus lower Medicare benefits! Again, misappropriated payroll tax earnings in order to lower income tax rates. That also is what we have gotten with the “cut spending” mantra.
How many other things have been squeezed because of the “cut spending” idea, which is a false solution to complex governmental issues that affect all of us and our way of life?
I say to all our representatives: Do your job! You asked for it, you even ran for it, you get paid for it. I know it’s not an easy job, but taxing us fairly and then spending our tax money wisely for things that really matter and are good for the nation and its people is what you signed up for.
And if we are to be the required “informed electorate” in all this, we need to intelligently do our job also and support representatives who take their jobs seriously.
Cut spending? Duh? I don’t think so. It’s just not that simple!
Andrea Rosanoff
Pahoa