The danger of deficits; the Prop. 8 trial; a museum for Eli Broad’s art

Getting to the truth about the U.S. deficit

Re “Deficit thinking,” Opinion, June 15

I was intrigued by James K. Galbraith’s statement that the case for cutting Social Security is a bogus smokescreen.

Contrary to his assertions, a program with extremely large unfunded liabilities cannot be anything but seriously flawed and broken. Further, a program where recent entrants can only look forward to retirement benefits which represent a pitifully small (and in some cases even negative) return on their “investment” is much more a failure than successful.

The stated popularity of the program is mostly due to the real smokescreen covering up the program’s deficiencies.

James R. Allder

Rancho Palos Verdes

Galbraith writes, “And paying interest on [U.S. Treasury bonds] is not, for us, a burden, since the money is never spent and probably never will be.”

To assess the future well-being of the U.S. economy on the probability that bondholders will not ask for their money back is hazardous to say the least. The U.S. dollar is only worth what people around the world think it is worth. If one fine day everybody decides that it’s just paper, then, well, what?

A country’s currency represents that nation’s net value in terms of resources, future earnings potential and more.

The deficit is far more than a national security issue. It is a measure of the faith the world has in the U.S., its people and its economy.

Shahryar Saigol

Lahore, Pakistan

Evidence and Proposition 8

Re “Prop. 8 judge probes ‘choice,’ ” June 15

The most interesting and disturbing question that Judge Vaughn R. Walker has raised about the Prop. 8 lawsuit is “Do the voters’ honest beliefs in the absence of supporting evidence have any bearing on the constitutionality of Proposition 8?”

To wit, how should we value a vote based on ignorance, error and “beliefs”? Should democracy be based on misguided opinion rather than reason and truth? Believing that the world is 10,000 years old will not make it so; and believing, regardless of the evidence, that same-sex parents are poor parents will not make them so.

Democracy assumes that most voters are knowledgeable, reasonable and just. That is not always the case. It is one reason we have courts, and judges like Walker.

David Eggenschwiler and Jane Gould

Los Angeles

Re “Judging same-sex marriage,” Editorial, June 16

I was delighted to read your fair-minded editorial on the subject of same-sex marriage. As you point out, one of the fundamental arguments proponents of Proposition 8 make for denying equal rights of marriage to gays and lesbians is that children are best raised by a mother and a father.

My experience as a gay parent is quite opposite of the claims made by Proposition 8 supporters: My partner and I successfully raised an at-risk child who was abandoned at the age of 13. Experts counseled that the chances of this suicidal child developing into a healthy adult were quite slim.

I’m happy to say that through hard work and loving devotion, our son is now a successful and well-adjusted adult. I would hold him up to any child raised in what might be considered the best of (heterosexual) families.

Dale W. Palmer

Altadena

The Times sees same-sex marriage as a civil and human right. It’s not. It’s immoral — hence, not a right.

There’s a good reason we say “our God-given rights.” To deny that our rights ultimately come from God is to accept whatever man proposes “rights” to be.

G.V. Climaco

Brea

UCI’s treatment of Muslims

Re “UCI Muslim club may be penalized,” June 15

As much as I am an advocate of free speech and human rights, the Muslim students who disrupted Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren’s speech did more harm to Islam than they can imagine.

Universities have been the places for meaningful discourse and are places to be “revered” in Islam. Ambassador Oren was an intellectual, a guest speaker, and should have been given the chance to speak. The Muslim students should have posed tough questions during Q&A, which would have been the appropriate way to voice their concerns and anger.

UCI has been very fair in its dealings with the Muslim students. By being bellicose, the students have done Islam more damage than good. Muslims youth will now be called ill-tempered, irrational, fundamentalist and “extremists.” U.S. Muslims need to purge themselves of such labels through their behavior. More can be achieved through levelheadedness than through misconduct.

I am glad that the students have not been expelled and can continue to pursue education at this fine institute. A one-year suspension should be seen as a consequence of bad choices, and not as a punishment.

Anila Ali

Irvine

False choice on Broad museum

Re “Private art, public good,” Editorial, June 14

The proposed Eli Broad art museum is a public bad, not a public good. What we have is free property for the rich and powerful — financed by us.

The predicted benefits are the standard fantasies that have been shown to be false time after time. Tens of thousands of tourists do not come to Los Angeles to visit an art museum. If there are even tens of thousands who visit the museum, they will be locals, whose money would be spent here anyway.

The construction jobs, and later permanent jobs? They too will come about when something is built on the property in question — and that something will pay taxes as well as generate greater income for the rest of us.

If Broad wants to build an art museum, he can buy the land, not expect it for free.

David Argall

La Puente

Poverty wages a theft of labor?

Re “Ending poverty,” Opinion, June 14

While I strongly disagree that capitalism is “the most powerful anti-poverty force in the world today,” I want to thank Joyce Appleby for her clearheaded thoughts on the importance of living wages.

We need to start calling poverty wages what they are: theft. They’re theft of money, theft of labor and theft of a worker’s quality of life — and I’m tired of living in a society that encourages those with power to steal from those without it.

I look forward to a day when profit doesn’t take precedence over lives.

Julia Glassman

Long Beach

Picking a fight

Re “Who are we defending?” Opinion, June 14

Whom. That’s who.

Mitchell Tendler

San Diego