To the Editor:
Re “Need to Repair Social Safety? The Properly-Off Should Settle for Smaller Checks,” by Peter Coy (Opinion, nytimes.com, Could 13):
I discover it maddening that the one resolution to the Social Safety Belief Fund difficulties supplied by conservatives is decreasing advantages.
There are a selection of acceptable will increase that would resolve the funding issues of Social Safety and Medicare. By acceptable, I imply will increase within the quantity paid into the funds by rich people with excessive incomes, and no will increase within the quantity paid in by working stiffs.
Let me recommend a couple of: The Social Safety tax stops at a comparatively low earnings stage, $168,600 yearly, this yr. Why not do as Medicare already does and tax all of an individual’s earned earnings?
Talking of all of an individual’s earnings, why is it that solely “earned” earnings is taxed for Social Safety? Why not tax all earnings, together with funding earnings? The actually wealthy earn most of their earnings by investments, not salaries. To be truthful, that earnings must be taxed, too.
One other chance is to make the funds progressive as an alternative of a flat tax. Wealthy individuals can and may pay the next S.S.A. tax, as they do on common earnings.
All of these measures would make Social Safety and Medicare self-sufficient, and are further bills solely to the well-off.
Peter Limon
Irasburg, Vt.
To the Editor:
Peter Coy outlines a considerate method for fixing Social Safety funds and making this system work higher for American retirees. Whereas the system is complicated, the fundamental system for restoring fiscal steadiness is easy.
Profit funds have to fall or program revenues — from payroll taxes or basic appropriations — have to rise. The trick is getting Congress to behave when supporting both coverage is taken into account political malpractice.
To interrupt the stalemate and keep away from the extreme penalties of inaction, Congress ought to research how state governments handled underfunded public worker pensions following the 2008 monetary disaster. Lawmakers throughout the political spectrum responded by rising employee contributions, decreasing price of dwelling changes for retirees and allocating further tax {dollars} to assist stabilize the methods.
In isolation, any one among these insurance policies could possibly be criticized for political acquire, however they have been continuously accredited as a bundle with bipartisan assist and in states ruled by Republicans and Democrats alike.
The lesson for Congress is that this method — which prioritizes shared sacrifice throughout the inhabitants and shared political threat amongst lawmakers — supplies a street map for lastly fixing Social Safety.
Chris McIsaac
Washington
The author is a fellow with the governance program on the R Road Institute, a suppose tank.
To the Editor:
Peter Coy’s name for “reworking” Social Safety “into a security web for the least advantaged” misunderstands the aim of the system. It’s wage insurance coverage, meant to permit individuals to keep up their requirements of dwelling by changing earnings which are misplaced as a result of retirement, incapacity or dying of a household breadwinner. Practically all staff pay in, and practically all profit.
The overwhelming majority of Social Safety beneficiaries are not rich. To attain vital financial savings by decreasing advantages for greater earners you would want to outline that as individuals with common lifetime earnings of solely $85,000 per yr. Congressional Republicans are proposing to just do that. In lots of areas of the nation, that’s barely center class.
As a substitute of slashing Social Safety advantages for the center class and turning it right into a poverty stage subsistence program, we must always require the really rich — these making over $400,000 a yr — to contribute their justifiable share.
President Biden and congressional Democrats have plans to just do that. Their proposals usher in sufficient income to not solely guarantee the advantages could be paid in full and on time for the foreseeable future, but additionally broaden advantages.
Nancy Altman
Bethesda, Md.
The author is president of Social Safety Works.
Singapore’s View
To the Editor:
“Singapore’s Riches Grew Below Its Longtime Chief, however So Did Discontent” (information article, Could 16) claims that Singapore is “one of the crucial costly cities on this planet.” However the index you cited (printed by The Economist) measures the price of dwelling in Singapore primarily with expatriates and enterprise vacationers in thoughts, not residents.
Like many international locations, Singapore has skilled greater inflation lately. However we closely subsidize the fundamentals of housing, well being care and schooling for residents.
Greater than 80 p.c of Singaporeans reside in public housing, and the overwhelming majority personal their properties. 9 in 10 sufferers pay lower than $370 out of pocket for a sponsored public hospital keep. Ninety p.c of public schooling prices is sponsored.
The Gini coefficient, a measure of inequality, has improved within the final twenty years, and redistributive insurance policies have diminished earnings inequality additional.
Lui Tuck Yew
Washington
The author is Singapore’s ambassador to the US.
An Ithaca Man’s Tragic Demise
To the Editor:
“When Tommy Rath Vanished From Ithaca’s Squalid ‘Jungle’,” by Dan Barry (entrance web page, Could 19), paints a vivid image of the tragic remaining years and dying of an Ithaca resident, Thomas Rath. Our hearts ache for Mr. Rath’s household and the kid he leaves behind.
Nevertheless, I object to Mr. Barry’s characterization of my administration’s efforts to resolve the entwined issues of homelessness and crime whereas I used to be mayor of Ithaca.
Crime within the metropolis total fell throughout my administration, as we labored tirelessly to create housing for Ithaca’s weak residents. We constructed extra reasonably priced housing throughout our administration than within the 40 prior years of metropolis historical past mixed, in addition to transitional shelters for residents of the Jungle homeless encampment.
Removed from discouraging police from patrolling the Jungle, we ordered patrols, and when officers refused to get out of their patrol automobiles within the space, we constructed a brand new street to facilitate entry.
The article sadly reinforces the false and oversimplified narrative that progressive administrations can not scale back homelessness or crime, when in actual fact our administration achieved each these aims.
Sadly, pushing such narratives can result in inhumane “options” that create better hurt, each for the weak and unhoused and for the communities the place they reside. We will’t let that be the legacy of this heartbreaking case.
Svante Myrick
Washington
The author is president of Individuals for the American Manner.
MSNBC’s Function in Our Democracy
To the Editor:
Re “Battle at NBC Over Left Tilt From MSNBC” (entrance web page, Could 16):
Information shops that see U.S. politics as regular are the issue, not MSNBC.
Republicans have grow to be a rogue political social gathering, supporting rebel and refusing to just accept legit election outcomes. They refuse to just accept the basic rules that decide truthful elections. As such, there is no such thing as a longer any equivalency between Democrats and Republicans.
As a nation, we have to re-establish a wholesome two-party adversarial system that abides by democratic guidelines. That may be completed provided that we survive the current risk to our constitutional system of governance.
MSNBC is extra involved about saving our democracy than selling political ideology. Lengthy might it wave.
Chase Webb
Portland, Ore.
