Letters to the editor

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Hire ambition

Editor, The Times:

Regarding "State picks up 11,600 jobs in step toward recovery" (Times, page one, Aug. 18): Excuse me? Whom are we trying to kid here?

The influx of jobs has everything to do with seasonal harvest workers and little to do with a changing economy. The asparagus business in Eastern Washington will be laying off workers in the thousands thanks to the global economy and to growers in Chile, where asparagus grows an inch an hour and labor is cheap.

Wheat farmers are letting fields run fallow and many are losing their farms, which have been in the family for generations, because wheat can be imported from China at much less per bushel than what it can be produced here.

Mid- and upper-level jobs are being outsourced in the millions, while our nation's supposedly conservative leadership has outspent any administration in American history and even now is looking for entitlement programs to plunder to finance continued military operations in Western Asia.

The national debt has spiraled into the trillions while friends of the federal administration are pocketing profits in the billions from the military-industrial complex. Meanwhile, the national economy is no longer measured by its gross national product as it once was when America was a major producer of manufactured goods and foodstuffs; instead, economists produce reports on how well the retail markets are doing at Christmas and Easter to buoy a desperately sagging economy.

So now we have been reduced to counting on Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny to make ends meet nationally? Oh please, isn't it long past time for a change?
— Mark Lampe, Bothell

Advancement opportunity for enterprising type

"Gap between rich, poor widening in troubled economy" (page one, Aug. 17) contained a comparison of the top and bottom 20 percent of earners, but the following facts were omitted:

The Census Bureau data measure households, not individuals. Their figures inform us that the top 20 percent of households are three times more likely than the bottom 20 percent to be headed by two adults rather than one. This thereby increases the number of potential earners, and total income, of each household in the upper-income group. As the incidence of single parenthood has grown, so has the gap.

The top quintile contains a far higher percentage of full-time workers.

A capitalist economy is participatory. Those whose participation leads them to risk capital, create jobs, develop new products and boost productivity stand to reap increasingly greater rewards than those who do not.

Wealth is expandable. A dollar added to Bill Gates' pocket does not remove one from that of a poor person.

There is tremendous mobility between the quintiles. A study by the congressional Joint Economic Committee, using data from the IRS, concluded that 86 percent of those in the bottom quintile will rise beyond it within 10 years.

The ongoing squabble about the income gap brings to mind a quote from Winston Churchill: "The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries."
— Chris Cutler, Seattle

Circle prospects

We have to wonder just exactly what all the campaign rhetoric on taxes means. Are we seeing a typical delayed economic reaction that reflects factors outside any given president's influence? Isn't Congress responsible for anything? (We thought they were the ones who passed the laws?!) Well, let's take a bit of history:

"It is a paradoxical truth that tax rates are too high today and tax revenues are too low and the soundest way to raise revenues in the long run is to cut rates now." — John F. Kennedy, Dec. 1962.

President Kennedy went on to say:

"The reason is that only full employment can balance the budget and tax reduction can pave the way to full employment. The purpose of cutting taxes is not to incur a budget deficit, but to achieve the more prosperous, expanding economy which will bring a budget surplus."

Then, we recently read an OMB (a nonpartisan office) report that said in effect that all of President Bush's proposed tax cuts wouldn't begin to fund Sen. John Kerry's proposed new programs (under a Kerry presidency).

So what is the Democrats' real solution? We'd like to figure out where the truth rests!
— Al King, Olympia

Must exhibit leadership

Regarding Walter Williams' "Bush's tax-cut policies put economy in the tank" (guest commentary, Aug. 17): Every American who pays income tax was a beneficiary of the Bush tax cuts. You remember back when the economy was fueled by "irrational exuberance" and high-paying jobs that were created by dot-com companies with non-sustainable business models or pillars of business like Global Crossing, WorldCom and Enron that had non-existent profits?

So, I guess it is just plain irrational to be thankful for the creation of 1.5 million jobs following the devastating attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the start of a sustained war against terrorism, and the sting from the highest oil prices in decades. The economy, along with corresponding deficit projections, are not static and both will continue to improve as a result of strong leadership at home and abroad.

Just as Presidents Kennedy and Reagan have shown in the past, an individual American spending, saving or investing his or her hard-earned money is always more powerful than 10 government bureaucrats appropriating the same.
— Kenneth Moninski, Seattle

Territory to be deterrent

I object to John Picinich's measuring the state of the economy by using the length of his wait at restaurants at Alki Beach ("No reservations required," Northwest Voices, Aug. 18).

I can say with confidence that there are lots of people who don't live within 15 minutes of the beach, who can't afford to eat out, don't have jobs, and are having trouble finding one with health care and a livable wage.
— Mike Herman, Tacoma

Clock watchers need not apply

New overtime regulations take effect this Monday ("Overtime rules kick in next week, but may not bring big changes," News, Aug. 17). The regulations, which will eliminate the right to overtime pay for up to 6 million Americans, were forced through by the Bush administration, despite bipartisan opposition in Congress.

Who's affected? Police officers, nurses, cooks, clerical workers — in other words, middle-class America.

On top of this, the Congressional Budget Office published a report last week that documented how the Bush tax cuts have moved the tax burden off the super-rich and increasingly onto the backs of working Americans.

At a time when only the delusional can continue to deny the growing gap between the haves and have nots, why is the Bush administration fighting so hard to take more money out of the pockets of the Americans who really need it?

The next time you hear President Bush claim that his policies support the middle class, look to see if he has his fingers crossed.
— Jennifer Winters, Seattle

Political bargains

I saw some official-looking Kerry/Edwards campaign signs today that said, "Veteran for Kerry." That sounds about right.
— Jerry Brown, North Bend

Two for one

Finally, I spotted a positive Bush bumper sticker in Seattle: "Two terms for Bush: great — one for each!"
— Fred Ketteman, Seattle