Letters: Trump administration aims to keep the oligarchs happy

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Trump administration
aims to please oligarchs

Re: “How Trump can quickly help the working class” (Page A7, Dec. 17).

Who exactly does Marc Thiessen think is his audience? His plan to use the budget reconciliation process to cut taxes immediately will not benefit working-class Americans as Thiessen suggests.

And how does he propose to pay for those cuts?

1. Repeal climate spending in the Inflation Reduction Act.

2. Eliminate $80 billion that President Biden gave the IRS.

3. Raise the excise tax on college and university endowments from 1.4% to 35%, as proposed by JD Vance.

One and three are hard to explain. If the goal is balancing the budget, simply tax the very wealthy.

Wait, that probably wouldn’t be welcomed by the wealthy. They are the real winners in the Trump administration. Keep the future oligarchs happy.

These proposals are not for the working class as Thiessen suggests. They are for the corporate folks. Having two billionaires looking to streamline the budget says it all.

Bruce Halen
San Jose

Abolishing fares will
hurt, not help, BART

Re: “To help BART, makes rides free and raise taxes to cover cost” (Page A6, Dec. 11).

Michael O’Hare’s suggestion that we scrap all BART fares, and make up for lost revenue by somehow increasing taxes, would be catastrophic for public transportation.

American cities that have tried free transit in large systems saw increased vandalism, graffiti, rowdiness and damage to vehicles that increased maintenance costs. Such experiments never lasted more than a couple of years. Scrapping BART fares would turn the trains into mobile homeless shelters, putting off regular riders and incentivizing them into the cars that we should be encouraging them out of.

BART’s implementation of gates that prevent fare-dodging is entirely appropriate. There may be issues with the system’s financing and governance, but abolishing fares is not the answer.

Eamonn Gormley
San Jose

Citizens United is
republic’s greatest threat

Re: “Democracy’s death will be purchased” (Page A6, Dec. 17).

Letter-writer Barry Bronson may have been prophetic when he wrote, “And this could be how our democracy ends.”

Bronson is referring to the havoc caused by the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision. This decision designated corporations as “people” with all the rights of citizens, including the right to spend unlimited amounts of money in politics. The president-elect has gathered around him multi-billionaires to do his bidding. Record amounts of money were spent on both sides, and it can only get worse.

Billionaires have no desire to reverse the Supreme Court’s decision, and they have no place in our government. It is up to “We the People” to reclaim our liberty. Today, educate yourself on Citizens United vs. FEC and inform your federal and state legislators of the need to rescind “corporate personhood” and restore our democracy. Tomorrow may be too late.

Bill Wallace
San Jose

Strip president of
power to set tariffs

Congress should take away from the president the power to set tariffs.

I’ll suggest if Donald Trump raises tariffs excessively, the same litigation strategy should be used that was used for student loan forgiveness. Lawsuits were filed to block the loan forgiveness on the basis that it was an unreasonable expenditure of money without congressional approval. I recall Justice Barrett wrote in her opinion this is like a babysitter given a credit card to use in an emergency, and the babysitter spends $1,500 on a party to entertain the kids. She thought despite Congress having given authority for the loan forgiveness, this was too much money being spent to be reasonable without congressional approval.

So if the tariff increase is unreasonable, I suggest a lawsuit be filed by affected plaintiffs, using the same rationale that despite the president being given that power by Congress, it has to be reasonable.

L.K. Wright
Santa Clara

Letter is delusional
vehicle for anti-Zionism

Re: “Are drone sightings result of U.S. policy?” (Page A6, Dec. 18).

Delusional observers who believe that drones sighted over the Eastern seaboard have somehow arrived on our shores from elsewhere also cannot help themselves but connect that to the similarly nonexistent genocide occurring in Gaza.

The real genocide against Muslim civilians occurred not far away in Syria with hundreds of thousands killed by the Assad regime and dumped into mass graves. Somehow for Israel haters and their unwavering support of propaganda devoted to anti-Zionist misinformation that horror goes completely unmentioned.

Kent Hoffman
San Jose