Letters and Feedback, Feb. 5
Detroit's problems
going nationwide?
President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder feel our racial problems in cities like Ferguson are caused because there is not enough racial diversity in the government, police, fire department, schools, etc.
In 1960, Detroit had the highest per capita income in the nation and was the fourth-largest city. It was governed by Republican mayors for most of the years between 1933 and 1962. In 1962, Democratic mayors took over and established what has evolved into the Obama-Holder doctrine and Detroit currently has the following:
• Forty-seven percent of Detroit residents are functionally illiterate.
• Less than half of Detroit residents over age 16 are working.
• Sixty percent of Detroit children are living in poverty.
• Forty percent of street lights do not work.
• Only one-third of ambulances are running.
• Two-thirds of city parks have been closed down since 2008.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. preached freedom of opportunity, not equality of outcome.
World-renowned economist Milton Friedman was so correct: "The society that puts equality before freedom will end up with neither; the society that puts freedom before equality will end up with a great measure of both."
After listening to Obama's State of the Union, it is obvious that he is "Detroiting" America.
D. Miller
Guillotine pain
lasts only seconds
I read with disbelief the article written by Richard Wolf, "Execution by drugs gets a review," in the Jan. 24 paper. Then I read in the Jan. 29 paper the U.S. Supreme Court has blocked the next three executions scheduled in Oklahoma to review if the lethal injections violate the Constitution's prohibitions on cruel and unusual punishment.
In Mr. Wolf's article, he stated the execution of Charles Warner in Oklahoma on Jan. 22 lasted 18 minutes and witnesses only saw twitching in Warner's neck for about seven minutes. I personally don't feel 18 or seven minutes is cruel and unusual in the case of Mr. Warner, who raped and killed an 11-month-old girl. The infant, with no doubt, died from cruel and unusual punishment and endured pain for more than 18 minutes.
As a liberal, I do not support what the Supreme Court did. If the Supreme Court justices are worried about "searing, unnecessary pain" for hideous murders, I believe the guillotine resolves the problem since the pain would last only seconds.
Stephen L. Snyder
Talk's cheap and
trickle-down, fiction
Since the last campaign, all Republican politicians, including Sen. Rubio, Speaker Boehner and Senate Majority Leader McConnell, have expressed their "concern" for the middle class.
"Wealth inequality" and "better paying jobs" have apparently become conservative issues. Talk is cheap, however. What remedies do they propose? As reported in FLORIDA TODAY Jan. 30: "Republicans want fewer regulations and more tax breaks for businesses to create well-paying jobs." Spare me. The above defines supply-side economics, the old rich-get-richer scheme that, along with globalization, slammed the middle class in the first place. No disease ever worked as a cure.
The flaw within the supply-side logic is the "trickle-down effect." It's fiction. Businesses do not create jobs out of patriotic altruism. New hires occur when there's either a need or an incentive to do so. Consequently, job growth remains slow and middle class incomes, in Sen. Ted Cruz's words, "have stagnated." Please note I did say "all Republicans." Suggesting more tax cuts for the wealthiest is unconscionable. The maximum rate of 39.5 percent only applies to $100 million per-year-and-up earners. The rate drops to 35.2 percent for a $1 million salary. Considering the top rates were 91 percent in the 1960s and 50 percent in the '80s, the rich have no cause for complaint.
Rather than "earned income," however, the wealthiest accumulate treasure through their investments. Here again, the tax code adores them. The tax ceiling on long term capital gains on equities is only 20 percent for individuals netting over $405K per year, below which it tops out at 15 percent — Mitt Romney's rate, if you recall the 2012 campaign.
How can Republicans scream about deficit spending and suggest cutting the already-low tax rates on the wealthy in the same paragraph? This hardly lends credibility to their "concern" for the middle class.
Corporate tax reform, however, could benefit greatly. First, eliminate tax breaks for out-sourcing jobs overseas, the off shore tax havens which cost the Treasury $150 billion last year, and the millions in subsidies paid to oil companies and the giant agri-corps, who net billions in profits each year.
After plugging the loopholes, cut corporate tax rates from the present 40 percent to the 12 percent average they actually pay, while affording incentives for long-term domestic job creation and the reinvestment of profits into infrastructure and increased production. I'm suggesting a corporate tax code revision that ensures a "trickle-down effect" actually occurs, to benefit both businesses and workers, rather than just the super-rich alone. Members of Congress, your "concern" does nothing. Please work together toward our nation's common good.
Jim Turner