There are ways for us to come up with money

Malcolm Petrie, Las Vegas

Sunday, Feb. 27, 2011 | 2:03 a.m.

We don’t have enough money to pay for the services we require as society. The question then becomes: How do we get more money?

I have some suggestions. We could eliminate subsidies that the American taxpayer gives to the sugar industry. We could eliminate subsidies that we give to the oil industry. We could eliminate subsidies that we give to agribusiness to not grow certain crops.

Some industries in Nevada are not contributing their full measure. Employers who pay their workers under the table are not paying taxes for those employees; we end up paying if those employees end up in emergency rooms and on Medicaid. The gold mining industry has been getting a good deal for the past 145 years. It extracts gold from our soil and takes the profits somewhere else.

Also, we need to lift the Social Security cap that says any amount above $106,000 in annual salary isn’t subject to the payroll tax. We should make the Wall Street bankers and investors (the vampire octopi) pay back the bonuses they got while driving our economy into the ditch.

We can blame George W. Bush for our struggles — and I do — but I don’t understand this nostalgic affection for Ronald Reagan. When Reagan became president, I lost my house, lost my car, my wife left me and even my dog left me. Sound familiar? I miss my dog.