Letters: Trump’s unstable mind + Republican tax plan + Estate tax
Trump’s mind
Re “Trump stokes anti-Muslim sentiment; censured in US, abroad” (sacbee.com, Nov. 29): With each passing day, President Donald Trump’s mental instability is becoming more evident. We hear that he’s resurrected old conspiracy theories regarding illegal voters in the last election and illegitimacy of Barack Obama’s birth certificate, and claims the unconscionable tapes of him bragging about sexual misbehavior were faked. Now, he found it necessary to retweet unsubstantiated videos from an anti-Islamic website in Britain, prompting national and international outrage. He fouled a White House ceremony to honor three Navajo code-talkers by posing them in front of a portrait of Indian-killer Andrew Jackson and used the racial slur “Pocahontas” to insult a sitting U.S. senator. This is all happening at a time of great world turmoil and uncertainty, especially with regard to the North Korean nuclear threat. Trump is clearly not capable of prioritizing his constitutional responsibilities and is, in fact, contributing to national and global insecurity. It’s not about politics anymore, whether or not tax or health care bills gets passed, but far greater issues are at stake. This president must be removed from office before his actions precipitate a calamity of staggering proportion. And let it be clear that should Republicans in Congress and the cabinet fail to do their duty and thereby permit Trump to do the unthinkable, they will forever be responsible for that catastrophe.
Mark Basgall, Sacramento
GOP tax plan
Re “Letters: What has become of the Republican Party?” (sacbee.com, Letters, Nov. 27) I am a former Republican who has to agree with letter writer Powell Svendsen’s statement that the only families Republicans value are the rich ones. There is nothing more evident of this than President Donald Trump’s stated goal of eliminating the estate tax, which provides about enough money to run the Veterans Administration. Proponents of this cut call it the “death tax,” and try to snow us by asking if we want to give most of our inheritance to the government after the fact. In the real fact world, the tax does not even apply until a married couple has received over $10.6 million, and is progressive above that. About 5,500 families, some with hundreds of millions and even billions of dollars, have to pay as it now stands. To my knowledge, no wealthy Democrat has ever pushed this legislation. This is payoff to the pay-for-play gang, ironically the very thing that they accused others of doing during the campaign. Only one Republican Senator, Susan Collins of Maine, has spoken up on this issue. At some point, one has to inquire which party really believes in self-responsibility.
Bob Brauns, Folsom
This story was originally published December 1, 2017 at 5:10 AM with the headline "Letters: Trump’s unstable mind + Republican tax plan + Estate tax."