Readers React: If Porter Ranch leak executive bonus isn’t reason enough to tax the rich, what is?

To the editor: It’s this sort of shenanigan — poorly performing execs receiving enormous bonuses, in this instance — that disgust many Americans who, believing the system is rigged, lose faith in our democracy and in capitalism itself. (“Despite gas leak, top exec gets big bonus,” Business, March 30)

Unfortunately, many of the disgusted then lose all common sense and believe that members of the 1% or their paid-for politicians will somehow supply a cure.

It’s time to cut back our welfare handouts to the 1%. Flat tax or low tax rates are an expensive fraud.

As a retired accountant, I suggest we reinstate tax schedules used by the Eisenhower administration, adjusting them for inflation. What was fair in the 1950s is now a necessity.

Likewise, exempting capital gains from tax is a gift to the uber-wealthy; tax them at ordinary rates.

Chuck Almdale, North Hills

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To the editor: From the front page Business section article regarding the paltry proposed wage raise to the adjoining column regarding Sempra Energy’s CEO earning a $3 million bonus after one of the worst gas leaks in U.S. history, daily the news seems to become ever more absurd.

Republican presidential candidates engaging in racist and xenophobic commentary, catering to followers’ anger and anxieties? A Senate refusing to consider the president’s Supreme Court nominee?

What has become of civil discourse, rational policies to meet the elemental needs of the greatest number and a humane society?

J.C. Atkin, Long Beach

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