Letters to the Editor: The national debt is indeed a problem, but cutting benefits isn’t the answer

To the editor: Contributing writer Veronique de Rugy is correct in pointing her finger at both political parties (“Republicans and Democrats are playing the blame game as the national debt explodes,” Aug. 27). But as usual, she lumps welfare and entitlements together, thereby giving entitlements a pejorative meaning. The implication is that Social Security and Medicare payments are government handouts.

There is no doubt that a dwindling workforce and an increasing cohort of retirees are creating an imbalance between the source of monies flowing into the trust funds and the payments to those eligible to receive payments from the funds. And though unsaid, the imbalance represents a generational transfer of wealth.

De Rugy argues that, “Maintaining these benefits without crushing taxes was always going to mean a lot of debt.”

This implies that the only solution is to cut benefits. Why are taxes always crushing? Crushing to whom? Certainly not to the oligarchs and overpaid CEOs. Removing the cap on contributions to Social Security would certainly help, as would imposing a tax on other sources of income, such as capital gains, that the wealthy enjoy.

There has to be more than one way to solve this problem other than cutting benefits.

Martin Parker, Thousand Oaks

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To the editor: There’s an old saying that goes, “If you don’t know history, you’re condemned to repeat it.” Well, I’m not an economist, but I have studied the national debt starting in 1945 when we were coming out of World War II and because of the Great Depression and the cost of the war, we had a huge debt. However, we also had historically high taxes.

Even though we were helping fund the re-building of Europe, fighting the Korean War, building the Interstate Highway System, putting a man on the moon, fighting the Vietnam War and many other expenses, the national debt-to-GDP ratio was quickly going down — because of high taxes mainly on the rich. Then in 1986, President Reagan and the Republicans cut taxes primarily for the wealthy. Almost instantly the national debt began to rise at a quicker rate, with an exception during the Clinton administration when it flattened.

With further tax cuts — including the Trump Republicans’ One Big Beautiful Bill and their unfunded expenditures, like the war on Iran — the national debt has grown exponentially. We are borrowing ever more money to pay the interest on the $40 trillion we owe the world. It’s a pending time bomb.

As for the services we provide ordinary Americans, like Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, part of the problem is the cap on taxes for the rich.

Herb Adelman, Del Mar

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To the editor: It is always amusing to see right-wing commenters referring to “entitlements.” Do they mean universal healthcare, which almost every other industrialized nation provides? Are they referring to Social Security in a country where the cost of living has increased rapidly in the last two decades, but the federal and most states’ minimum hourly wages have not risen to meet it?

Suggesting that recent tax cuts that reduced revenue by 2% of GDP are irrelevant (and ignoring the impressive trend of reducing top income tax rates over many decades), De Rugy loses all credibility when she suggests the military budget is poised to shrink relative to GDP. She’s apparently unaware that our president is requesting a 42% increase in military spending. We live in a country that already spends more on the military than the next six highest-military-spending countries combined.

De Rugy is right that our legislatures’ priorities need to change, as does our rhetoric. Healthcare and Social Security are basics, necessities — not entitlements.

Dave Haberman, Woodland Hills

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To the editor: The only way that De Rugy sees to tackle our ever-increasing national debt is to wring more sacrifice from already overburdened working Americans. Our social safety net is already tattered in comparison to other advanced nations, but De Rugy chastises Republicans for failing to “truly reform welfare and entitlement spending” and abolish Obamacare.

The ability of the wealthy to shape federal policy and tax laws in their favor has led to the current situation in which the richest 10% of U.S. households owns 68.3% of private wealth, while the bottom 50% owns a minuscule 2.5%. Yet that never seems to be enough for the 10%. When they fail, they get the government to bail them out. Then they turn around and blame the national debt on Social Security and Medicare.

There are many ways to get serious about reducing the national debt and also increase the well-being of everyday Americans: Shrink spending on bloated defense systems and unjustifiable foreign wars; end tax subsidies to thriving industries like Big Agriculture and fossil fuels; and require that rich Americans and corporations pay their fair share of taxes. Above all, make creating good jobs with decent pay a national priority. Amazon workers deserve decent working conditions and wages that do not need to be supplemented by SNAP benefits. Increasing their income would boost the economy more effectively than anything else Jeff Bezos could do.

De Rugy champions the privileges of the rich while undermining basic support for working Americans. That is not a recipe for a prosperous nation, let alone a just one.

Grace Bertalot, Anaheim