Businesses are greedy

Re ” Greed is driving Amazon’s anti-tax initiative” (Comment, July 21):

Thomas Elias claims that greed is the driving force behind‘s stand on charging sales tax. When you get down to it, greed is the driving force behind any business. Why would you expect Amazon to pay taxes in a state where it has no store?

Mr. Elias points out that the property taxes paid by brick and mortar stores help pay for things like police and fire protection, parks, street cleaning and sewer service. These are all things that brick and mortar store use. Now tell me how any of these things benefit a store that is not located in this state.

By the way, even though there may not be sales tax on the online sales there is shipping charges, so the savings are not that great.

John Scoby


Don’t privatize pensions

In your July 24 editorial on Social Security reform, you suggest privatizing Social Security by having workers invest their retirement money in stocks and bonds. Do you realize that investing in the stock market is the reason many people cannot retire at this time? Thousands of people who intended to retire lost their investments and are still working at jobs that younger, jobless people could have had.

Actually, Social Security would be made solvent for 75 years and beyond simply by scrapping the cap on wages subject to the payroll tax. Sometimes the simplest solution is the best one.

Donna Leslie-Dennis

Long Beach

Medicare’s positives

The efforts by the Republican Party to divorce Medicare from government control and place it with the private sector could mean disaster for hospitals, which depend on Medicare to survive.

While private health plans use any excuse to avoid paying, Medicare has a lot better track record than non-government health plans.

Thomas Cresswell


Electric car fallacies

Re “Electric cars’ battery challenge” (Editorial, July 21):

In 2009 the U.S. had about 246 million cars. Lithium is used to produce batteries for electric vehicles. All electric vehicles require replacement batteries at some point. Most lithium comes from Chile and Bolivia and there are large deposits in Afghanistan. Most electric power is produced from fossil fuels. Most oil used to produce gasoline and electricity in the U.S. is shipped to us from other countries.

If 246 million vehicles required lithium and electricity to operate … think about it.

Taylor Ramsey


Middle class’s burden

My husband and I work long hours and pay taxes, while nearly half of households do not. Whenever the president vilifies people who work, we know he is talking about us, although we make much less than the vaunted $250,000. There are not enough rich people to pay for his spending spree, so we know from history that the government will take from us even more on top of what we already pay.

Lana Wright

Long Beach

Clean up dogs’ mess

I live near Marine Stadium and can’t believe how irresponsible some dog owners are when it comes to their dog’s waste. These owners not only ignore the posted signs of no dogs on the beach but they also ignore the fact that children play in the very sand where their dogs are pooping. Don’t they realize that dog waste may pose a serious risk to children and adults, since it carries bacteria, diseases, viruses and parasites.

Miguel Rivera

Long Beach

`General welfare’ stated

Re “Phrase is missing” (Letters, July 22):

The writer wonders where the idea that the United States should “provide for the well-being of its populace” comes from, and states that he could not find it in the Declaration of Independence or U.S. Constitution.

He must not have looked very hard.

“To promote the general welfare” is one of the stated purposes of the Constitution; the phrase is found in the preamble.

His statement “The harder I work, the luckier I get” would seem to imply that anyone not rich simply isn’t working hard. This will come as startling news to the many Americans who have worked their fingers to the bone in mines, factories and in other blue collar jobs that pay poorly but funnel lots of wealth to investors, who don’t “work hard” at all.

John Tecumseh

Signal Hill

A model politician

I saw a televised interview with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. What I would like to know is where is this country’s Netanyahu? I do not see any politicians in office or running for office with the prime minister’s courage, character, charisma or intelligence.

Joel D. Colbert

Long Beach

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