Defeat of Budget Amendment

Now that the balanced-budget amendment has failed (March 3), let’s get busy and really balance the budget. Cut expenses for services that are clearly unnecessary and increase taxes, especially for those who are best able to pay.

The Republicans have worked hard to cut expenses even for services that some consider essential. Their next step should be to work just as hard to increase taxes--that is, if they are seriously interested in balancing the budget.

QUENTIN C. STODOLA

Redondo Beach

* Some senators opposed the balanced-budget amendment because it might have resulted in reduced Social Security benefits. But many of these same senators effectively reduced these benefits by taxing them. Taxes were first imposed in the early ‘80s, and then increased by the 1993 Clinton budget. Taxes now reduce my Social Security benefits by 24%.

It seems obvious that Congress doesn’t need a balanced-budget amendment to further reduce Social Security benefits. It can, at any time, increase the portion subject to the income tax, and/or raise the tax rate on the benefits, and/or lower the income threshold above which the benefits are taxed.

JOHN CAMPBELL

Woodland Hills

* The Democrats admit that the deficit will continue to be $200 billion for the next 10 years. They have no plan to balance the budget. The Republicans are no different. They refuse to explain what their plan is.

Both parties have ruled Social Security “off the table,” yet this is the major entitlement expenditure. They both plan to reduce taxes. The Republicans want to increase defense spending.

Unless some hard choices are made, there is absolutely no way either party can balance the budget by the year 2000-2002, amendment or not. Since neither party has credible fiscal statesmen, what is the solution? My answer is a strong, viable third party. A party that will tell us the facts, regardless of how unpleasant they may be. A party that will have a plan of fair “shared sacrifice.” This would include some entitlement adjustments, continuing to downsize government, further decreasing the defense budget and probably increasing taxes on tobacco and alcohol.

Is there a leader out there? Are you listening, Paul Tsongas? Warren Rudman? Bob Kerrey? Colin Powell? Ross Perot?

WILLIAM E. DANKO

Anaheim

* Are the media existing between the front and back covers of the pages of the book “1984,” where a lie is called a non-lie? Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) did lie; so why is House Speaker Newt Gingrich a bad guy for saying so (March 2)? He would be a liar if he didn’t.

Feinstein and all these other senators who are “flapjacks,” now cooking on the other side from last year, are desperately trying to get seniors stirred up about a current non-issue--Social Security. The issue is a balanced-budget amendment, you frenetic senators!

STAN BOGGESS

Rancho Palos Verdes

* Some have accused Feinstein of hypocrisy in voting against the balanced-budget amendment. I think her critics have it backward. The real hypocrisy is the balanced-budget amendment. The spurious claim that an amendment to the U.S. Constitution is needed to balance the federal budget is tantamount to the 18th Amendment’s claim that it would stop the consumption of alcohol. This balanced-budget amendment would also, like the 18th Amendment, be either ignored or its enforcement would endanger the fabric of our society and it would have to be repealed.

Feinstein has it right. The Social Security Trust Fund should not be used to balance the budget. Congress has all the power it needs now to balance the budget.

C. F. STEWART

San Diego

* Re “Gramm Seen as Winner, Dole as Loser After Vote,” March 3: It is actually the country which was the winner. Sen. Phil Gramm (R-Tex.) voted for the balanced-budget amendment, which every thinking person knows is deceitful, non-consequential and a ruse by Congress to avoid doing what it should be doing without this coercion. Gramm is an outstanding example of that type of thinking.

Might not this column have been put to better use explaining to the public, which apparently is strongly in favor of the amendment, the charade it truly represents? Wouldn’t this prove more valuable than showing that Gramm is happy that the amendment he supported went down in defeat because it reflects on his competitor for the presidency, Dole? .

NATHAN H. GARVIN

Los Angeles