Look elsewhere for spending cuts
Re: “Why Won’t Congress Rein In Spending? — The government is poised to overspend again,“ Monday Editorials.
You are correct in stating that our nation’s finances are on an unsustainable track, but you blame out-of-control spending on entitlement programs, while at the same time claiming that everyone, including the editorial board, s tax cuts. You’re wrong on both points.
All spending should be evaluated, including the defense budget. And our financial woes will never be solved without targeted tax increases. Social Security could be secured by simply raising the withholding cap, for example.
The current legislation pays for continuing tax cuts for the richest of the rich by reducing benefits, like food stamps and Medicaid, used by the poorest of the poor. That’s unconscionable.
Jeff Nelson, Arlington
Just fire people
A reasonable and responsible editorial; however, the disingenuous blame laid at the doorstep of entitlements cannot stand alone. Twenty years of war paid for on credit, on top of tax cuts, deserve at least a one-sentence mention to balance the knee-jerk reaction to entitlements.
Further, you cite “decades of bad financial management.” Undoubtedly true, but that’s what I thought DOGE was going to address. Too difficult, I guess. Just arbitrarily fire people — much easier.
Louis Dellefave, Dallas
The elephant is Medicare/Medicaid
“As we see it, the core financial problem our nation faces is that we have massive entitlement programs we can’t afford, and at some point, we will either have to cut benefits, raise taxes immensely or something in between if we want to deal with the debt problem.”
This is exactly the problem.
Social Security, though, is not the biggest part of the problem. It can be tweaked with relatively small changes to achieve solvency. We could modestly increase the retirement age or raise the earnings threshold to fix it.
The smelly, proboscis-wielding mammal in the room is Medicare/Medicaid, which takes in about 20% of what it spends. This is the budget buster. This deficit alone makes up most of the yearly federal deficit.
As I see it, the Medicare tax would have to rise from 1.45% to over 7.25% (for both employee and employer).
The problem is that neither party wants to commit suicide by increasing the Medicare/Medicaid tax across the board, or wants to cut the program to the level of the revenue.
You must do one or the other or a combination of both.
The only way to do this would require a true bipartisan solution. A party going it alone would get skewered. A tax increase of this size and/or cuts of this size would probably induce an immediate recession.
Politicians have to do what’s right for the country, for a change. The alternative is an eventual inflationary economic disaster when the dollar is destroyed.
Robert Beatty, Plano
Defense spending is one culprit
The DOGE efforts were a pathetic approach to spending cuts, focusing as they did on government salaries, which are a mere 6% of federal spending. To curtail further budget deficits, one must look at major contributors to the problem.
The defense budget certainly qualifies, with almost a trillion in spending, outpacing the top five foreign governments added together.
Rather than addressing this matter, the editorial highlights so-called entitlement programs, mentioning Social Security funding. One simple fix would be to raise the $168,000 cap on Social Security tax, but that won’t be done because it would gore the ox of the affluent.
Another approach is to drop any mention of tax cuts. They are not sustainable and will lead to further devaluation of the dollar, further credit downgrades and very possibly the loss of the dollar’s status as the reserve currency.
Some senators have said they will not vote for the budget bill because of the debt issue. A single phone call from the president would remove their caveats, leading to Senate age and the consequences of out-of-control spending.
Jim Wells, Irving
Capitol sausage-making
Re: “Trump wants a tax bill on his desk by July 4,” Wednesday news story.
The moment of truth for President Donald Trump’s supposed big, beautiful bill is imminent, as the Senate now considers the House version of the bill and how much of it is palatable to the senators.
Fallout from the House bill has already created feigned ignorance and deniability by some representatives, who claim no responsibility for the draconian provisions the House ed.
The continuing legislative process, unofficially recognized as the sausage-making, provides the House and Senate opportunities to stuff the sausage, as it were, by all legislators. Once both versions of the bill are reconciled, the final product will be forwarded to the president for his signature. Then Trump will have his big, ugly sausage of a bill that will cut medical care and other social services to millions of Americans, while delivering on his promise to his billionaire buddies to make them richer with tax cuts.
Tony Torres, Garland
What do they really mean?
Working class and their fair share — Can somebody please give me a clear definition of these two overused ?
It would seem to me that anyone who has a paying job is of the working class, correct? In 2025, a person who earns $40,000 annually will pay an effective tax rate of 11.4%, while a person who makes $4 million annually will pay an effective tax rate of 37%.
What constitutes one’s fair share?
Jon Currie, Garland
To whom much is given ...
In a recent letter, it was stated that the top 1% of earners pay 48.8% of all taxes. So what? Every person except the rich must pay a set percentage of their income. Today the richer a person gets, the lower his percentage owed in taxes becomes. The opposite should be true.
The higher a person’s income, the more that person should pay in income taxes. The percentage of taxes owed by the rich shouldn’t go down. It should go up. If all those millionaires and billionaires paid their fair share of taxes, percentage-wise, I imagine that the national debt might be taken care of.
Andrea Welch, Denison
Safety net, investments at risk
I am an octogenarian Austinite who, as a first time voter in 1964, proudly marked my ballot for fellow Texan Lyndon Baines Johnson. LBJ advocated for a Great Society that would address the needs of our country’s most vulnerable.
After voting in every election for the last 60 years, I am appalled as never before by the spectacle of an American president laser-focused on policies that terminate for basic human needs in order to reward the ultra-rich with tax cuts.
The embarrassing, inanely labeled “One Big Beautiful Bill” is truly a Huge, Outrageously Horrific Bill. If enacted, it will shamelessly deprive our most vulnerable citizens of a safety net, while at the same time risking our country’s long-held role as a source of safe investment for investors worldwide.
You reported that Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said about the bill, “The Senate will have its imprint on it.”
I call upon Sens. John Cornyn and Ted Cruz to lead the charge with amendments that stop the carnage and turn this human and financial disaster into legislation that restores comion, decency and humanity, as well as fiscal responsibility, to our government’s spending.
Claudia Morgan, Austin