LETTERS

...Higher taxes might reduce their investment capital, but won’t really change their personal lifestyle...

...JOHN N. GUNNING Islamabad, Pakistan...

...So what...

...Over and over and over I keep seeing intelligent liberals commit the same egregious error, and I’m fed up...

...Why the distrust of government...

...American democracy provided Mencken with his greatest comic material...

...Here’re the pivotal sentences: “Suppose instead he marries her and takes a job flipping burgers at McDonald’s and manages to make about $8,000 a year...

...Instead of giving him the medal he deserves, what do we do...

...government contributed $4,950, the tuition of the Islamabad school, towards my son’s bill of $12,650...

...Yet despite the serious administrative problems that existed in the parks department, Buffalo is a city whose residents are acutely aware, and intensely proud, of what their community has to offer...

...In closing, let me say that I read your article and that I understand that Buffalo was selected from reader nominations...

...overseas military base that has such a school...

...And it’s laughter and burlesque that make democracy an improvement on other forms...

...So what...

...Arthur is the president of the Buffalo city council...

...In that case, who is most guilty but our very own federal government...

...Somehow these downtrodden people managed to get their work productively accomplished...

...So what...

...Assets like Kleinhans Music Hall and the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, Shea’s Theatre, the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, and the Buffalo Zoological Gardens...

...boarding school...

...Buffalo Place,” our new pedestrian mall, is finished, and it has spurred many new developments along the Main Street corridor...

...First, maybe money is so important to citizens because our government doesn’t care about much else...

...I put in extra effort on the work I do that never gets billed...

...Second, I am tired of hearing about soaking the rich...

...government would pay that rate as the educational allowance...

...I am left with one question: How many of the people outraged by Michael Irwin’s suggestion that World Bank staffers would do better to fly in business and economy class fly first class when on personal travel...

...To use a personal example, my son chose to go to a U.S...

...I have worked as both secretary and administrative assistant in Washington for the last several years and I have never worked for anyone who ever traveled first class...

...So please, come to Buffalo and discover not the “Worst City Government” but rather the “BEST KEPT SECRET IN THE EAST...

...The net effect is that federal welfare policy divides citizens into two classes: the “sponges” who receive largesse but return nothing, and the “suckers” who pay for the largesse and receive nothing...

...But these new developments are only a part of what Buffalo has to offer...

...How many of these people find first-class travel so necessary when they pay for it themselves...

...Any economist will tell you McDonald’s would be allocating $8,612 toward that employee, because they must “match” the “employee’s” tax contribution with an “employer’s” tax contribution...

...We’d like to show you some of the community’s longstanding assets as well...

...Alas, when you-and the federal government-talk of “taxing the rich,” you hold up these kinds of folks as examples, but when it comes to actually defining the tax base, “rich” really means everyone who is not poor...

...In these cases the U.S...

...Our Waterfront now sports several new marinas and restaurants and some of the most beautiful waterfront housing in the country...

...The rest was my expense, as it should be...

...It’s not strictly true that Mencken (while preferring an aristocratic government) was opposed to democracy...

...Since I was subsequently assigned to Islamabad, Pakistan, where there is a fine English language international school, the U.S...

...LETA M. HALL Rockville, Maryland Stand-up democracy Nicholas Lemann, a writer I much admire, in an otherwise fine review [“Snob Rule,” May], is a bit too harsh on H.L...

...Money madness You suggest that “excessive regard for money is Public Enemy Number One” [“Besieged and Beleaguered on $200,000 a Year,” Charles Peters, June...

...Until the federal government decides that we are all citizens, and all responsible for our government, and all entitled to equal treatment by that government, then “read my lips” politicians will continue to get my support...

...The only children who receive “away-fromhome” educational allowances such as the $14,900 you quote are those who do not have adequate schools at their foreign posting...

...Any economist will also tell you that if the government didn’t gobble up the “employer’s” contribution, that “extra” $612 would go to the employee (thus both “contributions” are really the employee’s...

...Besides, democracy functions best when it embraces snobs who scorn it...

...Is it any wonder that taxpayers distrust this ever-hungry gaping maw...

...Extra taxes hurt...

...We take $I ,224 away from his total pay...

...CHARLES A. MOLLE Galesburg, Illinois First classlessness I read “Let Them Eat Honey-Roasted Peanuts” [Michael Irwin and members of the World Bank, June] with great interest...

...The government’s only real interest in my citizenship is the taxes I produce...

...There are many new and wonderful things happening in Buffalo that we would enjoy showing you...

...Mayor Griffin held a press conference to respond to the story...

...DICK IRISH Marshall, Virginia Innocent abroad I am disappointed with Charlie Peters’s May “Tilting at Windmills” item on education allowances for children of diplomats and other civilian government employees stationed abroad...

...Also, Pilot Field, the home of the Buffalo Bisons, is an exciting new facility that we hope will someday house a major-league expansion franchise...

...In fact, given your perennial concern about how much taxes “the rich” are paying, I have to wonder where YOU stand on the “public enemies” list...

...By the same token, “means tests” designed to exclude “the rich” also often limit benefits only to the poor...

...Mencken defended democracy on the grounds it was the funniest form...

...I may be comfortable, but I am not rich...

...Is it any wonder that the most popular federal programs are those in which everyone pays and everyone receives the benefits...

...JOEL S. DAVIS Albuquerque, New Mexico I’m a big admirer of yours, but dammit you really fumbled the ball in your reference to Social Security taxes...

...Rich” is a Rockefeller, or a Kennedy, or a Donald Trump...

...I am writing to extend an invitation to you to visit Buffalo so that we can show you our beautiful city and demonstrate that the people of the “City of Good Neighbors” can take being chided in a good-humored fashion...

...GEORGE K. ARTHUR Buffalo, New York Mr...

...Mencken’s antidemocratic bias...

...I put in a lot of volunteer hours...

...So what do you expect my main interest in government to be...

...NO...

...LETTERS Buffalo chips in As I’m sure you know, the inclusion of Buffalo in your monthly feature “The Worst City Government” [Katherine Boo, April] created quite a stir in Buffalo when our local paper the Buffalo News ran a front-page story on your feature...

...The Social Security tax is set up purposely in this asinine way so that people will not realize the effective FICA tax rate is an astonishing 15 percent...

...And of course, no visit to Buffalo would be complete without visiting several of our outstanding restaurants that serve a variety of traditional ethnic cuisines...

...We take $612 from his pay in social security taxes...

...The Department of Defense school cost of $5,000 per pupil is relevant only in those few cases where a foreign service officer is posted near a U.S...

...I get politically involved and support candidates and causes I believe in...