On the Money

Nicholas Lemann’s report about Proposition 40, California’s proposed one-time wealth tax, presents a comprehensive account of its context (“For Richer,” October 12th). I agree with Michael Moritz, whom Lemann quotes: a tax on the rich in one state to address one funding deficit would, if it passed, be a mere sandbag in the path of the rising floodwater of inequality. Our real problems are deregulation, the capture of the two main parties, and corporate welfare. The solutions are a viable populist alternative party and an end to oligarchy. In the Gilded Age, the Populist and Progressive Parties elected members of Congress and began to reverse the concentration of money and power. We need the same today, along with a policy overhaul to reëstablish more equal distribution of our country’s productivity.

Alan Cohen
Eugene, Ore.

Billionaires who are skeptical of California’s proposed wealth tax on the ground that such a policy cannot possibly have a positive effect should take a look at the results of Massachusetts’s so-called “millionaire’s tax.” That tax—which taxes income, not wealth—charges an additional four per cent on incomes above a million dollars, and its revenues are earmarked for transportation and education. For example, it funds community colleges, so that Massachusetts residents can attend them for free. Since 2022, when the law passed, enrollment in community colleges has grown by twenty-seven thousand.

Many wealthy Americans attended community college, including the Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, the filmmaker George Lucas, and the Costco co-founder Jim Sinegal. Their educations helped propel them to successful careers. Although only ten per cent of Proposition 40’s proceeds would be earmarked for education, including funding for such colleges (how much, if any, would depend on how the California legislature chose to direct Prop 40 income), history certainly suggests that these institutions can be a worthwhile investment.

Ken Farbstein
Concord, Mass.

The Way Back

I enjoyed Peter Hessler’s article about southwest Colorado’s scenic—if perilous—U.S. Highway 550, a particularly risky portion of which is known as the Million Dollar Highway (“Danger Drive,” October 5th). I know I’m getting older, but I was still surprised to realize, while reading the piece, that I may be one of the few left who travelled on 550 before it was fully paved. I still have a memory of seeing the road before that: My father and I were returning home from Silverton, Colorado, to Bloomfield, New Mexico, and the midday sun on the packed-earth surface of the road shimmered with the innumerable pieces of pyrite—that is, fool’s gold—embedded in it. My father saw me with mouth agape as I looked past our old Packard’s windshield, sure to see Oz soon. “Yep,” he said, “that’s why they call it the Million Dollar Highway.”

Paul Mitchell
Cochiti Lake, N.M.

Justice Undone

Eyal Press’s story about the plight of Justice Department lawyers under Donald Trump brought back memories from earlier in my career (“Should I Stay or Should I Go?,” October 5th). I was the first Assistant U.S. Attorney hired by the Nixon Administration—I started a few minutes after noon on January 20, 1969. I had interviewed for the job in the fall of 1968, with the Assistant Attorney General at the time—a Democratic appointee—but I didn’t want to start until the next June. Then Richard Nixon won the election, and I was told courtesy dictated that the A.A.G.’s successor, who was working with Nixon’s transition team, should have a chance to vet me. He asked me if I was politically active; I said no. He asked me if I would promise to stay that way as long as I was with the D.O.J.; I said yes. Then he said, “Welcome aboard.” In January, when I started the job, we listened together to the radio broadcast of Nixon taking the oath.

I treasure my memories of those years because I got to work in an office that lived up to its motto: “The Government wins when Justice is Done.” Those were great times, and I join the thousands of other D.O.J. alumni in mourning for what we—and the country—have lost.

Steven Kazan
Oakland, Calif.

Childless Without Choice

Margaret Talbot, in her review of Anna Louie Sussman’s new book about declining fertility rates, concludes by endorsing policies that make “family life” easier (Books, September 28th). I agree with Talbot, but I also think that one factor too often ignored in society’s conversation about boosting fertility rates is the subset of would-be parents who dearly want children but don’t have the luxury of choice: the one in seven adults, or 13.4 per cent, experiencing infertility.

My multiple failed I.V.F. cycles have opened my eyes to the fact that many infertile people cannot afford the up-front costs of bringing a child into existence. Even alternative pathways, such as adoption, surrogacy, or gamete or embryo donation, can cost a small fortune. Governments could increase birth rates by requiring insurers to cover fertility treatments and subsidizing their costs.

Funding medical research would also help. In my case, severe endometriosis, overlooked by doctors for twenty years, destroyed my ability to have children. Endometriosis affects an estimated 6.5 million people in the U.S. alone. Surely, many of them would be having children if they could.

Katie Segal
Watertown, Mass.

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