Clinton’s Tax Bill

* Many of the Republicans and some of the Democrats in the Congress are opposing the budget deficit plan on the basis that it does not go far enough in making cuts. Why don’t they vote for the present package and then come back later with individual bills canceling or curtailing existing programs? There is nothing magical about doing it all at once this week. Or are they afraid that on a straight up and down vote for reducing individual programs they can’t find the votes. A reduced/canceled/delayed program later this year is just as effective in fighting the deficit as one that is included in the current bill.

DON RYERSON

San Pedro

* A parade of big business executives endorsed Clinton’s tax-and-spend bill, advertised as a deficit reduction bill. They must know something. Maybe what they know is that despite all the demagoguery about soaking the rich, it is the middle class, as usual, that is going to pay.

RICHARD A. PERKINS

Los Angeles

* Regarding former President Reagan urging “just say no” to Clinton’s budget (Aug. 3):

A man who started the whole stinking mess has no right to criticize the President who is trying his utmost to get us out of it.

DON C. OKA

North Hollywood

* President Clinton asked that I contact my representatives and ask them to vote for his tax increase package. I do not understand why he is so intent on making the American people pay for big government!

Government is America’s biggest business. If we continue in our present direction, we will soon have more people redistributing wealth than producing it. Why not cut the fat out of government? The President’s insignificant government cutbacks do not address the problem of unchecked growth of the bureaucracy in Washington.

The President accepts a 4.3 cent per gallon increase in gasoline taxes; but the taxpayers will pay not only their own increased gasoline taxes, but the increased cost of virtually every product we purchase.

Our elected representatives need to address the real problems of the deficit rather than accepting another burden on my already overburdened paycheck.

CHRIS GARNER

Riverside

* With regard to the Clinton budget plan, the job-killing taxes in this bill will be retroactive to Jan. 1, but the alleged spending cuts will not show up for five years--when another Congress is in session and it is assured there will be another President.

The Constitution states that no ex post facto laws may be written. Therefore, this retroactive tax hike is unconstitutional.

Except for the retroactive aspects of this bill, it is almost identical to the phony deficit cutting bill that the Democrats in Congress talked George Bush into signing in 1990. Even the figures are almost identical--almost $500 billion and the same politicians who pushed that failed bill on us in 1990 are continuing to come to the microphones, purring the same sweet nothings into our ears in an effort to assure us that this bill is different. And our two California senators are leading this facade.

The sad part is that this is all smoke and mirrors. There are no spending cuts. This bill only provides that the increased spending will not be quite as high as the Democrats had projected earlier.

It will devastate the economy and small businesses will be taxed so much that there will be nothing left for expansion.

FRANK DREWE

Glendale

* I want to congratulate the GOP leaders on their decision to change the name for the Grand Old Party to Gridlock O’Partisanship. This move defines the party clearly for the American voter as the one standing in the way of change on Capitol Hill. Evidently the only change they desire is a change in the chief executive.

RYAN GIERACH

Beverly Hills

* In the interests of reducing the deficit, we are now to embark on the largest tax increase in history (and oh, by the way, we will start to implement reductions in the growth of the federal budget after the next presidential election). Get real; there are no real cuts going on here, only a slight hiatus in the digging of our economic hole.

What needs to happen is to freeze all entitlement spending at current levels, tax everyone on all income, earned or not (including Social Security and Medicare benefits), at a 10% rate, impose a flat tariff and sales tax, and when the money is gone, the government is done spending. It is time for Americans to get back to being responsible for their own lives, successes and failures without Uncle Sugar bailing them out.

MICHAEL MILDON

Buena Park