Life expectancy should be on moving scale
Janice Ayes Column on June 20 fears the reality of changes needed to make Social Security viable.
The right solution is to make the new retirement age indexed to Average Life Expectancy minus a constant number of years (perhaps 8).
So the ALE age of 78 in her example would become new retirement age of 70. The key is it would change every year, up or down, based on the data. Some changes might be needed in SSI to bridge people with worn out bodies to the new retirement age. The indexing idea "should" fix the problem permanently as the number would move in a few years should medical research find a real cure for cancer, heart disease or even if self guided vehicles cut traffic accident deaths.
The other needed steps would be to match Medicare to the new retirement age and align disbursements from the Public Employee Retirement accounts to the same new retirement age although vesting could remain exactly as it is today. Those few very courageous steps would solve our large unfunded liabilities challenges for many decades if not permanently.
Ray Bacon
Minden
Support the fair tax
Tax reform is in the air; it will happen, but we should worry about the form reform takes.
If it's more tinkering with the already over-tinkered tax code, it will be no reform at all. Just more favors for some, penalties for others and headaches for all.If it's a value-added tax, we will have a national sales tax to go with the income tax.
If it's a flat tax, it's still based on income, requires forms to be submitted and is subject to all the manipulations that exist now.
If one or more of the above suit you, relax. Politicians will take over and make deals.
Washington Post columnist George Will asked, "Wouldn't it be nice if we had a tax code that looked like someone designed it on purpose?"
There is one: the FairTax. It taxes consumption at a single rate, provides a prebate especially helpful for lower incomes, requires no paperwork, is transparent and is difficult to manipulate.
You can learn more at www.FairTax.Org. Get on board. Support freedom. Support the Fair Tax.
John Vettel
Carson City
Obama oversteps grounds on immigration
President Obama recently issued an executive order unilaterally changing the way the Department of Homeland Security deals with certain classes of illegal immigrants.
The president's new policy allows up to 800,000 illegal immigrants under age 30 to apply for work authorization if their parents brought them to the U. S. before they were 16; if they've lived here at least five years; are a student; have a high school diploma; or GED; or have served in the military.
Certain Representatives have called Obama's executive order a "thinly veiled political ploy" and a "back-door amnesty" that is "stunning in both its arrogance and shortsightedness."
Rep. Dave Schweikert, R-Ariz., said, "What the president's done is both a great violence to the Constitution and separation of powers, but is also pretty darn cynical. The president doesn't have the constitutional authority to instruct his agencies to follow some laws and not follow others."
Rep. Ben Quayle, R-Ariz., said, "This end-run around Congress was a direct rebuke to the principle of three co-equal branches of government ... and more broadly, our entire system of laws. It's time for Congress to send a loud and clear message to the Obama administration that its efforts to circumvent the legislative branch and ignore our nation's laws will not stand."
David and Judy Sheppard
Carson City
Linear-based economy solves problems
In the June 10 edition of the Nevada Appeal, Mr. Guy W. Farmer adequately covers the economic problems caused by public-sector unions.
What he failed to do was to identify the cause of the problems. It's no secret. Compounding the root cause. Compounding is the cause for inflated wages, prices, economic bubbles, business cycles, Euro Zone economic crisis's and our own.
It is the reason the rich get richer and the poor become poorer. Governments all over the world have failed to make corresponding compounded increases in taxes to cover the cost. At this time a topping out process is taking place in our economy. It is the prelude to something worse. Every additional dollar of deficit spending just makes things worse. There is a solution to the compounding problem and that is to convert our economy to a linear system. Sen. Harry Reid is aware of this and so are many others in Congress if they read my letters. Congress just doesn't have the guts to do what is necessary.
Donald W. Cunningham
Carson City
Stop rounding up our native horses
So, we have another wild horse roundup, some rancher must have complained again.
I have lived in Carson City since 1969 and the wild horses have been pursued since then and before.
When Wild Horse Annie died, the horses lost a great friend.
With all the roundups since I have lived here, it seems like the money would have been better spent to protect them and possibly used to fence off areas of Nevada where they could live.
The ranchers lease grazing land for their cattle, why couldn't the same thing be done for the wild horse by the people who care for them and want them around. If ownership is the problem, we adopt whales to save them and they stay in the ocean, why not the wild horses?
Dixie Horsmon
Carson City
How about a new name for proposed City Center?
I'm with the fellow who believes our current library is more than adequate. Perhaps we could trailer that capital city classic downtown and tuck it in between the Nugget and the Laxalt Building. We'll call it the Gibbons Knowledge Center.
Russ Law
Carson City
Elected officials should vote their conscience
A true notable victory for all taxpayers will be the day that our elected officials will stand up like a man and vote their true conscience every time and not be coerced into casting a certain vote because they have pledged their allegiance to another person and not to their country
Since the days of Jesus and Zacchaeus, taxes have been a subject of controversy.
However, we all know that many things are not possible without some taxes to pay for them and if we all do our fair share, they will only be seen as "a necessary evil".
But each person must decide what is the best vote at a particular time. Where is the freedom in letting someone else tell you how you should vote?
As for me, I would not vote for anyone who signed the Taxpayer Protection Pledge, because I would feel he/she is voting for his own political good and not that of our country.
I think the Founding Fathers would want us to exercise the right to vote what we feel is right without being told how to vote.
Catherine Neely
Carson City
