Paying for Tax Cuts
The Times suggests in its Sept. 3 editorial that elimination of the capital gains tax on the sale of a house is somehow a winning idea because it may lead to lower housing prices. Leaving aside the undisputed fact that lower housing prices are not necessarily a good thing (witness the recent recession in California), it is remarkable how the baby boomer generation is once again selfishly trying to change a law that no longer suits its purpose. When the baby boomers were young homeowners trading up every few years, they saw nothing wrong with rising home prices, and certainly saw nothing wrong with the generation ahead of them paying large capital gains taxes on the sale of their homes.
Now that the first baby boomers are closing in on 55 (with many more soon to follow), they apparently are troubled by the current measly $125,000 deduction. The time to change the rules, however, is not in the middle of the game, particularly when the federal budget is going to be strained enough by the medical demands of a generation that forgot to save for retirement. How many times must we fall victim to the self-absorbed pleas of the baby boomers before we tell them to grow up?
HARVEY W. GELLER
Westlake Village
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* How to pay for a tax break seems a ridiculous question. If Kmart were to get into a financial bind would it raise prices to make more money? Of course not! No one would buy its goods. The answer is lowering prices, increasing sales for higher profit.
Lowering taxes increases tax revenue every time, on the federal and state level. Have the “New Democrats” been hiding under a rock, when they talk of an untried experiment? There is nothing untested about it!
Unlike in the days of Roosevelt, our country is now competing with the world just like Kmart competes with Sears and Target. A tax cut and easing of regulations would lower the price of our goods, making us more competitive at home and abroad.
The tax cut will pay plenty of dividends, generating better jobs that will resolve a lot of our ills--drugs, crime, poverty, etc.
ERNEST OHLIG
Newport Beach
