Letters to the editor for Aug. 12
We’ve been here before
My earliest memory: I was 3. It was raining. I was in our car outside the Portland VA while my mother visited my father, 35, who had polio and was in an iron lung — a metal tube he had to lay in 24/7 to breathe. Father spent six months in an iron lung, nine months in rehab, and wore abdominal and leg braces thereafter. He suffered terrible pain decades later from what is called post-polio syndrome.
Like COVID-19, the polio virus was contracted from people who didn’t know they carried it; most had mild symptoms. My uncle contracted polio, but didn’t know until years later when a shoe salesman told him one foot and calf was smaller than the other. Like COVID-19, most people didn’t die from polio but a large percentage of those who became paralyzed did. People hospitalized with COVID-19 often face long rehabilitation from lung damage and permanent effects. We don’t know the future complications.
My father came home a stranger. I then watched him suffer in later life. Don’t put yourself, your friends and loved ones — or me and mine — through this. As an act of basic compassion: wear your mask.
Melinda K. Holman, Olympia
Brothers Snaza ride again
When Thurston County Sheriff John Snaza voiced his unwillingness to enforce the mandatory mask order by state officials, I began to form my own opinion as to what the Sheriff’s idea is to stop the spread of COVID-19. He must think he has “magical powers” to stop the spread of the virus with his rhetoric. Otherwise he would be doing all he could to prevent the further escalation of the pandemic.
This isn’t the first time he’s ignored public safety and expressed the “live free or die” attitude that nearly cost him his life on a out-of-state, helmet-free motorcycle misadventure. He and his brother, Lewis County Sheriff Robert Snaza, both have expressed disregard for the safety of the citizens in their respective counties by not even trying to enforce what could be a life-threatening exposure to the virus.
In fact, Brother Robert seemed to encourage people to defy the order when he told a crowd of people “Don’t be a sheep” in regard to the mandatory mask order.
When you start protecting your own political beliefs at the peril of the citizens you have sworn to protect, it seems that you have lost your way.
Rick Yale, Olympia
Remember the 2017 tax cut
I hope Olympian readers will consider the effects of the Tax Cut and Jobs Act (TCJA) of 2017 as the November election approaches.
It cut corporate income taxes from 35% to 21%, and in years 2018 and 2019 raised corporate profits. Larger corporate profits mean larger dividends; however, more than 80% of those dividends go to upper-middle class and wealthy Americans, as well as foreigners who own American stocks. Corporate profits also are used for stock buy-backs, which can push up stock prices, again benefiting mostly better-off Americans.
Higher corporate profits can be, and are, also used for investment, primarily the creation of capital goods (tools of production). This typically leads to greater efficiency and more jobs. Unfortunately, too little investment seems to be happening. Instead corporate profits and borrowing are often used for stock buy-backs. Indeed corporate debt has been encouraged by the low interest rates and the deductibility of interest. High levels of corporate debt can prove dangerous in a recession; we have already seen a few corporations file for bankruptcy as a result of the COVID-19 recession.
TCJA also cut tax rates for many Americans; however, the cuts were small. The 15% bracket became 12%, the 25% bracket became 22%, etc. More importantly TCJA pushed the budget deficit up from $500 billion to $1 trillion, raising our already huge national debt. This was at a time when the American economy was at full employment and should have been running a budget surplus.
Brian LeTourneau, Olympia