Taxpayers Left to Drown in Billionaire’s Debt

Re “Taxpayer Going Down With Ship Project,” Dec. 9: How is it that billionaire businessman Samuel Zell is able to walk away scot-free from hundreds of millions of dollars of debt and then gets to dump the debt on the taxpayers? There must be some way, somehow, for the government and/or banks to make him take responsibility for his overextended scheme. The debt of over $200 million is chump change for a guy like that.

If there aren’t legal means to make him pay up, then he should do the right thing and relieve his debt out of his piggy bank. It is time for people of his ilk to demonstrate their social responsibility instead of feeding the adage that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer--and poorer and poorer--by propping up the rich.

Judi Laing

Los Angeles

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I wonder how many other such scams, foisted upon the American citizen in the name of national defense or industrial protection, lurk in our federal law. Hooray for Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) for seeing taxpayer pain approaching. Shame on scam artists Zell, Phil Calian and their ilk. Shame on dupes Sens. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) and Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii) for their complicity. If the American shipbuilding industry, or any other, can’t stand on its own, then the likes of Calian and Zell should find some other work for their employees.

Ed Sachtleben

Manhattan Beach