Cuts.

Editor,

Alan Simpson is wrong about cuts to Medicare, Medicaid, and other social programs. In fact, per Naomi Klein's "Shock Doctrine," the current, overstated fiscal "crisis" is yet another pretext for haters of FDR's New Deal to undermine the US's already meager safety net.

There are so many sources of revenue among demographics that can easily afford it, it is amazing that this assault on so-called entitlements has gotten the legs it has.

Here are a few off the top of my head:

1. Charge a 0.02% transaction tax on sales of stock held for less than one day.

2. Eliminate Cold-War-inspired weapons systems development from the military budget.

3. Close 1/4 of the US military bases on foreign soil.

4. End the carried interest loophole.

5. Tax capital gains over $1,000,000 as ordinary income, which it is.

6. Raise the cap on payroll tax income to $200,000 or eliminate it entirely.

7. Excluding capital investments and spending on R&D, prevent corporations from paying less than half of their tax bill before deductions.

8. Eliminate subsidies to oil companies, which are the most profitable businesses in history.

9. Define family farms in terms that prevent giant agribusiness corporations from receiving subsidies and taking deductions that are intended for what the average taxpayer envisions as a family farm.

There must be hundreds more.

That workers and the poor are easy targets does not mean they are the right ones.

Re: "Obama and Boehner Talk Deficits at the White House" (12/9/2012)