Letters: A fairer tax on capital gains

IT WAS heartening to read Stu Bykofsky's column shining some light on what needs to be done to pay down the nation's $13 trillion debt. But he doesn't take his analysis far enough.

Raising the rates on taxable income (your daily labor) to those of the Reagan era is a fine idea, but capital gains, a tax paid mainly by the elite investor class, must be raised from the meager 15 percent of the recent past to the 28 percent of the roaring economic times of the late '80s and '90s.

When the income tax was implemented, for the first six years capital gains were taxed the same as regular income, putting everyone on an equal tax footing. It occurred again for three years during the G.H.W. Bush administration.

This equitable taxation seems to be what ultra-wealthy patriot Warren Buffett was calling for when he complained that, in 2007, his tax rate of 17.7 percent on his income of $46 million wasn't evenhanded when compared with his secretary, who was taxed at 30 percent on an income of $60,000.

When Mr. Bykofsky says "government spending and entitlements have to be cut," I agree that the bloated defense budget for policing the world must be slashed, but programs like Medicare and Social Security must be properly funded to ensure that was true of the 1930s, that to be old was to be poor, is not again true in the 21st century.

Roy Lehman

Woolwich Township, N.J.

Too much Eagles!

I totally agree with Russ Bono's comment - we've all had enough Eagles talk.

It's Phillies season and our Flyers are in the playoffs. We had to turn several pages to get to their stories because you opted to use front and back for the Eagles. Why don't we hear baseball talk or hockey talk in the winter when the Eagles are playing? Give the other sports their due respect!

Theresa Clarkson, Philadelphia