POPULATION OUT OF CONTROL

Thank you for the in-depth article “The Toll of Immigration” [May 29-June 4]. It is a very complex issue with no easy answers. One of the things that impressed me about the article was the coverage on the issue of overpopulation. After hearing Paul Ehrlich speak in 1988, I devoted 12 years volunteering with Zero Population Growth (now the Population Connection). I found it to be very controversial then as it is now. Politicians don’t want or can’t touch the subject for fear of rejection. The best they can do is to support reproductive choice. Obviously we need to do more than that. Mexico has come a long way to drop their birth rate. No one wants to be told how many children to have. We must continue to educate the public and hope that we achieve zero population growth before the planet implodes. It will help to solve the need for so many people desperate to immigrate if we help other countries out of poverty and to stabilize their populations. – Barbara Baldock | Monterey

EUBIE KNOWS BEST

Ari LeVaux, your feast columnist, denigrates a person who doesn’t eat egg yolks and someone else who gives up bacon [“White and Wrong,” May 29-June 4]. He says that the fact that you can’t make mayonnaise without yolks proves something but he doesn’t say what. I’d say it proves that your columnist can’t hear what his body is trying to tell him. Around 35, if you don’t begin being creative about what you eat, you will be stuck in a super-size rut at 50, with heart palpitations, high cholesterol and a big fat doctor bill. Your palate will be long enslaved to your thought that nothing tastes good unless it has ritualized fat. Recipes aren’t written by God. The main organ of pleasure is the mind.

Your mind says you can’t be happy without [fill in the blank]. Your body says, I don’t need that stuff, don’t shove it in. As Eubie Blake said, “If I’d known I was going to live this long, I would have taken better care of myself.”– Helene Constant | Monterey

RICH ITCH

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s proposals to increase the sales tax and cut spending are putting our economy at risk. Raising the tax surcharge currently levied on incomes of $1 million or more– not spending cuts and a higher sales tax– are the solutions.

Cutting expenditure and increasing the sales tax are likely to hinder growth. Less government spending means less business for contractors, less employment and lower incomes. This translates into less demand for consumer goods and less growth. The sales tax adds to the problem by discouraging consumption and further reducing demand.

Taxing millionaires, however, is far less likely to adversely affect the economy. Millionaires inject a smaller portion of their incomes back into the economy through consumption (they already have all they desire). Furthermore, even with higher taxes there will still be plenty of incentive left for the rich to invest their money. Not surprisingly, the fastest economic growth in U.S. economic history took place when the top income tax rate was at its highest.

Taxing the rich through the progressive income tax is not only fair, it is efficient. Spending cuts and regressive taxes are not the solution.– Sven Brendel | Salinas