Letters to the editor for May 30
Preventing the support of war crimes
It’s important to call Israel’s recent bombing of Gaza what it is: a war crime. Israel killed more than 200 civilians, including more than 65 children and almost 40 women in just 10 days. More than 1,700 were injured. Israel destroyed schools, hospitals, and infrastructure, displacing over 90,000 people.
One of the most densely populated places in the world, Gaza is still suffering from the pandemic and vaccine shortages. Israel, with the help of the U.S. and our allies, has blockaded Gaza and controls the entry of everything, including food and the few hours of electricity allowed each day.
In both the long and short term, Israel has been the aggressor, beginning the most recent issue by attempting to remove Palestinians from the occupied East Jerusalem community of Sheikh Jarrah; at other times assaulting Palestinians at prayer.
The United States provides Israel with $3.8 billion per year in military assistance. One easy way to prevent Israel from committing war crimes with our tax dollars is to pass HR 2590 in Congress; contact your representative! If we fund the killing of Palestinians, we are culpable; either we support human rights or we don’t.
Individually, an easy thing to do is to buy nothing from Israel or from companies that support Israel’s settler expansion, or its army. We have the ability both individually and through our government to do the right thing. End the occupation of Palestinians and end the siege of Gaza. There is no justice in supporting oppression.
Bill Dole, Olympia
Walk a mile in their shoes
This letter is in response to the May 19 letter entitled “Homeless self sufficiency.”
The people who are prioritized for shelters are the most vulnerable: elderly, mentally ill, sick. Many houseless people do have jobs but don’t earn enough to rent housing. Others would like to get jobs, but find it extremely hard. Job searches are hard enough for the housed, who have bathrooms in which to clean up, computers to write resumes, and clean clothes.
As for cleaning up the encampments, think about how you would clean up without trash bags or trash cans and no garbage trucks to pick up the trash.
Houseless people spend much of their time traveling by bus or on foot to a place to take a shower, food banks, doing job searches (which is a full time job), or other appointments. When they are away from the encampment, their belongings are sometimes taken away and destroyed by those doing “sweeps.” Then they have to start all over from nothing. This can be exhausting and not leave a lot of energy for cleaning up their encampment.
Houselessness is not a lifestyle. It is where people never thought they would be.
Heather Pens, Olympia
Biden’s income, or his record?
I am not sure Philip Goff understands S corporation taxation, based on his comments in a May 26 letter.
It’s true that the Bidens wouldn’t pay payroll taxes on income from an S Corp. In an S Corp., shareholders are paid a salary and the business pays their payroll taxes. Any money taken out of an S Corp. is subject to income tax is paid by the members (owners). I need more detail from Mr. Goff about how this saves the Bidens $500,000. I understand that money retained in the S corporation is not subject to payroll taxes. But ultimately if it is paid out it will be. One could argue that deferring these taxes allows earnings to compound untaxed. If you have trouble with that, you have to look at all of the ways we incentivize people to save, rather than to spend.
Instead of focusing on the personal finances of one of the least wealthy politicians of his stature, let’s look at how mortgage interest is treated, something that incentivizes leverage and debt. Or how everyone pays less and some pay no taxes on their capital gains, compared to ordinary income. S corporations may be on the list of things that need scrutiny as we examine the inequity built into our tax system and other laws and regulations, which Biden, with his long tenure, may have had a role in supporting or opposing.
Alan Mountjoy-Venning, Olympia