Build better tax code to pay for necessary projects
Please don’t burden my grandchildren with debt.
I have read about the Green New Deal and I support its goals. I fully appreciate the motto “Build back better” and I believe that is exactly the right thing to do. Infrastructure repairs and upgrades; cyber security; clean rivers and lakes; better bridges and roads; and a more secure electrical grid — all are excellent projects that will create jobs.
I anticipate that the normal give-and-take of politics will result in deals that will provide each state and district with projects as both parties “bring home the bacon.”
But before the dealmaking begins, please, legislators, alter the tax code to pay for these projects. There are loopholes to close, incentives to eliminate, corporations and individuals who pay no taxes.
Responsible government is bipartisan. Once the tax code is designed properly, the deficit can be reduced, inflation held in check and economic growth ensured.
Do the right thing.
Ira Fleckman Orlando
GOP voting bills are against Christian values
In the season of Lent, the most sacred time in the Christian calendar, Republicans are proposing and enacting legislation that is anything but Christian. What exactly do they mean when they claim we are a Christian nation?
Jesus’ life was a life of inclusiveness, love, and concern for all humankind, but particularly for the powerless and downtrodden. His example was to show love and compassion to all those the powerful deemed unworthy. How then is it Christian to pass legislation silencing the voices of exactly the people Jesus was concerned about? Christianity is not about making voting harder for a community of people already under hardships, or making it illegal to offer food or drink while they wait in long lines.
What does it mean to be a Christian nation? Just making the claim while our actions say otherwise, or truly showing that we are trying to deal with the human suffering and injustices surrounding us?
Throughout history, the powerful and unprincipled have used religion for their own purposes. It never ends well. If these politicians want to lay claim to Christianity, Christians should demand they start acting like followers of Christ and stop the abusive legislation solely designed to keep the powerful in power.
Janine Armstrong Winter Springs
Indecisive Congress shouldn’t have war powers
The Los Angeles Times editorial, “Congress, take back power to declare war,” (March 30) gave me heartburn.
Leaving the power to declare war to a bunch of people who can’t decide whether to use single- or double-ply toilet paper is a recipe for disaster. When Franklin D. Roosevelt went before Congress to request a declaration of war after the attack on Pearl Harbor, there was no doubt as to the outcome; the vote was 82–0 in the Senate and 388–1 in the House. I haven’t seen, and don’t foresee, a similar result in any congressional consensus since then: Korea, Vietnam, Iraq … you name it.
I’m sorry, but when the drums begin to roll, I want the top dog to let the dogs loose. We’ve seen too many men and women die in conflicts fought without having Congress or, in some cases, the general population express the will to win. Congress has become too divided to be the court of last resort.
Rich Sloane Oviedo
Thomas’ view of voter suppression misleading
In Cal Thomas’ column about Georgia’s new voting laws, he blames the Democrats for historically impeding the rights of Blacks to vote (“Georgia’s new law on voting not about Jim Crow,” March 31). True — and misleading. Many Democrats were segregationists, but it was a time when the Republicans’ platform was anathema to many Southern segregationist Democrats, many of whom changed their party affiliation over the next 20 years.
President Lyndon Johnson, a Democrat, signed the Voting Rights Act in 1965. It passed the Senate by a 77-19 vote (47 Democrats and 30 Republicans).
Cal Thomas knows better. And that’s what makes his commentaries so sad to read.
Michael Kramer Lake Mary
