Letters: Ways to balance the federal budget

Regarding "Balancing Act: Let's get Uncle Sam out of the red" [Nov. 13], when you imagine a fair and simple tax system, you should consider which recommended change would bring about the maximum positive growth for the economy and domestic employment. Growing Gross Domestic Product and jobs at a faster rate would reduce the need for higher tax rates. For the promise of maximum growth, I would emphasize the benefits to be gained by replacing the corporate income tax with a value-added tax.

The VAT is approved as border-adjustable to eliminate the cost of government from competing international goods and services. The VAT is added to imports and subtracted from exports. U.S. trading partners and more than 150 countries employ a VAT to our competitive disadvantage.

Replacing the corporate income tax would eliminate the double-taxation of dividends and make the United States a magnet for foreign investment. Multinational companies would have an incentive to bring capital home from overseas.

Also, the VAT is much more difficult to avoid and would force many companies to contribute to our cost of government.

Steve Abramon, Water Mill
 

The supercommittee deficit panel is just kicking the can down the road and trying to avoid any major decisions on raising taxes. Why do we have these imbeciles in Congress, supposedly representing us, doing nothing but talking and worrying about their prospects of getting re-elected?

Our country has gotten to the point where we have to remove all these do-nothings from office and start over with people who want to do the right thing. Why can't we form some nationwide committee, using the Internet, to remove these people from office? Living in this kind of environment has become a very depressing part of our lives.

Robert Ackerberg, Massapequa
 

I am fed up with Newsday and politicians claiming that Social Security and Medicare are "entitlements." We paid for these programs in the form of payroll taxes. The federal government was supposed to take this money and invest it for the future, not borrow (and never pay back) from these funds.

You say that medical costs, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid are responsible for 40 percent of every tax dollar spent. Maybe that figure would be lower if we all went back to the basic tenets of theses programs. Medical costs would go down if people stopped using emergency rooms as free clinics. Someone has to pay these costs.

William Earley, Holbrook
 

Your second paragraph says the federal budget was in the black between 1998 and 2001. If this is true, then please explain why the national debt went up every single year during that period.

The problem is the debt and more than $400 billion paid annually in interest. It's not spending, and it's not income through tax receipts that are a problem; it's how our money is created by the Federal Reserve System.

Confiscate 100 percent of the wealthiest Americans' assets and balance the budget, and the debt would still strangle us. It's the banking system that's the problem. So long as news outlets continue to ignore the problem, then it will never be fixed.

You do the people a grave disservice by barking up the wrong tree.

Curt Applegate, Centereach