Levying a tax on benefits was a new idea at the time, promoted as one of the ways to help save Social Security for future generations. The system’s trust fund was only months away from running out of money, and revenue from the tax would be dedicated to keeping the program solvent. The reform was overwhelmingly approved by Congress and signed into law by President Ronald Reagan. As he said at the signing, it “demonstrates for all time our nation’s ironclad commitment” to Social Security.

It also demonstrates, in 2024, the unfairness of never adjusting the income threshold for inflation. When the levy first began, fewer than 10% of recipients had to pay taxes on any of their benefits. Today that number has risen to roughly 56%. Putting it simply, a threshold that hasn’t changed in 40 years is forcing millions of retirees with modest incomes to pay higher taxes than they should. 

Now let’s look at Social Security’s second unfairness, letting workers with huge incomes pay lower taxes than they should. Ironically, the only fair thing about this unfairness is that an annual adjustment is made.

Most workers pay Social Security taxes on every dollar they make. Big earners, though, avoid those taxes by the billions: there’s a dollar cap on earnings subject to the Social Security tax. The cap rises yearly at the same rate as average wages. This year’s cap is $168,000, up from $160,200 in 2023.

For those in the earnings stratosphere, Social Security taxes literally begin and end on New Year’s Day. As the headline in a piece by retirement expert Teresa Ghilarducci put it, “200 People Already Paid Their Social Security Taxes: Happy New Year!” By her calculations, Elon Musk hit the 2024 earnings cap at 12:04 a.m. on New Year’s Day; for Tim Cook of Apple, it took all of two hours.

Inevitably, the cap has become a serious drag on the program’s long-term fiscal health. The trust fund is once again running low, set to reach zero in 2033. Unless Congress acts, benefits will then have to be cut to 77% of current levels.

Social Security is far too popular for Congress to ever let that happen. The only real question is how lawmakers elect to stop it from happening. True to their history, Democrats and Republicans differ sharply.

A solid majority of Republicans are all in on raising the retirement age, first from 67 to 69 and then to 70. Both moves would effectively cut benefits for everybody and favor upper income earners, whose life expectancies are far higher.

No way, says Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont: “When half of older Americans have NO retirement savings, we don’t need to cut Social Security. Legislation I introduced last year would make Social Security solvent for 75 years, expand benefits by $2,400 a year, and NOT raise taxes on anyone making less than $250,000 a year.” 

The Sanders bill, co-authored with Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, would impose payroll taxes on any work income more than $250,000; in other words, the cap would be reset at $250,000. House Democrats have their own reform bill, Social Security 2100: A Sacred Trust, sponsored by Connecticut Rep. John Larson. It would set the cap at $400,000.

Hurrahs for both bills, and boos too. Each goes a long way in the right direction. At the same time, both stop short of going the whole way.

When Sanders first introduced his bill, here’s part of what he said: “Today, absurdly and unfairly, there is a cap on income subject to Social Security taxes.” It’s just as absurd to exempt income between this year’s cap and $250,000, or this year’s cap and $400,000. The payroll tax should apply to all work income, period. That makes the most sense, raises the most revenue, and helps Social Security the most.

Equally important, Congress should sharply raise the income floor for taxing Social Security benefits. It’s a move that’s long overdue.

Yes, raising the floor would decrease the tax revenues coming into the trust fund. The shortfall should be made up by taxing all the benefits paid out to high-income retirees. They now pay on 85%, but that figure hasn’t changed in a generation: it was set in 1993.

They shouldn’t mind. After all, the money will secure Social Security for their sons and daughters, and grandsons and granddaughters, and on and on.

Scorse writes on taxes. 

Sliwa should fold up his show and retire his red beret while the cops and DA Alvin Bragg must see he or his guys committed a crime.

How idiotic and ignorant to assert, as Sliwa did, that someone was probably a migrant because he spoke Spanish? Then, even if the man was a migrant, how would that be remotely relevant to this violent altercation?

Had there actually been shoplifting, let’s also not lose sight of the fact that the remedy to that is absolutely not a group beatdown. That the former GOP mayoral nominee felt he could order such a brawl on live TV, nonchalantly and without real concern for consequences, is a marker of the sadly predictable endpoint of local migrant politics over the past couple of years.

We’re not here to say that the migrant arrivals have been easy or simple for the city to contend with, and in fact we’ve written many times about specific challenges and chided the federal government’s lack of coordination and funding around the arrivals. We’re also not going to say that each and every single migrant is an upstanding person who wouldn’t hurt a fly, not least because that standard is impossible for any group; there is not one single demographic that can claim perfection.

None of that changes the fact that we’re skirting uncomfortably close to a wholesale demonization of migrants who, despite the anxieties projected on them, are by and large just people who are trying to get a better shake in life.

Mayor Adams earlier this week donned a bulletproof vest to accompany the NYPD on a raid of an alleged migrant robbery ring, amid continuing saturation coverage of the cop beating at Times Square, including runaway misinformation. Yet all of the innuendos seem to boil down to just specific instances of individuals or small groups engaging in wrongdoing.

This all comes into clearer focus if we just remember that this isn’t new. Anti-immigrant backlash panics have happened more or less identically in cyclical fashion over the last 200 years or so.

In the 1850s, the so-called Know-Nothings launched arguably the first full-fledged political movement centered mainly around fear of and opposition to immigration, with more or less the same points: these newcomers were inherently disposed towards criminality, less educated, gaming America’s generosity to poison it from the inside with their barbarous nature and simplistic civic conceptions.

This was said then not about Latin Americans and Africans but Jews, Irish, Slavs and Italians — incidentally, the latter two of which make up Sliwa’s own ancestry. The Know-Nothings were wrong then, and their contemporary counterparts are wrong now. Sliwa’s shtick was never too entertaining and it’s just gotten more dangerous and embarrassing. This road of hate and prejudice leads nowhere good, and we’d do well to slam the brakes now.

Interpreting Section 3 of the 14th Amendment is no simple task. It states, “No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.”

Question one is how insurrection or rebellion are defined. Question two is who does the defining, and the enforcement. Question three is whether this language, which doesn’t even include reference to the presidency itself, applies to that office or only to those beneath it. Question four is can a state do this or must Congress.

Lawyers on both sides disagreed with how exclusion from the ballot would proceed even if the candidate in question were an avowed insurrectionist running for an office clearly listed in the amendment. Colorado’s lawyer called it a “very easy case”; the self-declared enemy of America could be scratched from the ballot by state courts, period, end of story.

Trump’s lawyer disagreed — and wasn’t crazy for doing so. “Even if the candidate is an admitted insurrectionist,” said Jonathan Mitchell, “[the Constitution] still allows the candidate to run for office and even win election to office and then see whether Congress lifts that disability after the election.” It’s true that the language applies only to holding office, not to running, and it’s also true that it explicitly gives Congress the power to “remove such disability.”

The fact that in this case the person in question is a former president complicates matters further. As does the fact that, unlike every other president before him, he had never before sworn the oath for any other office. As does the fact that what Trump did, while definitely wrong and quite possibly criminal, may not legally be an insurrection.

Special Counsel Jack Smith’s case against Trump for meddling in the 2020 election is powerful, and it is a tragedy that the case may not be settled before voters go to the polls in November. The prospect of a President-elect Trump — or a second-term President Trump — being found guilty of undermining the American democratic system is enough to make one’s head spin. (So is the prospect of Republican voters making him the party’s standard-bearer despite all he’s done and all he pledges to do.)

But state by state removal from the ballot by state courts for having engaged in insurrection? That dog will not hunt, nor should it.

Forked River, N.J.: I watch the TV show “The View” because not every celebrity guest on the show is promoting a movie. Some are working on noble causes.

Recently, Matthew McConaughey was on to raise awareness for his Greenlights Grant Initiative, which can help to provide funding to make schools safer. Last week, Robert Downey Jr. was on to talk about his book “Cool Food.” The book shows how new farming techniques can make both people and this planet much healthier.

The ever-increasing problem with “The View” comes in the form of co-host Sunny Hostin. Her narcissism and constant interruptions of her co-hosts, especially Alyssa Farah Griffin, who is the only Republican at the table, is beyond annoying.

A few times now, in the middle of a live show, Hostin’s cell phone will ring because her adult children are calling yet again. After whatever was being discussed is derailed, Hostin tells the audience, “I told them not to call when I’m doing the show.” Then the same thing will happen again a week or two later.

Nowadays I will check the TV listing first to see who the guest will be to see if it’s worth tuning in. Only now my thumb rests firmly on my TV remote’s mute button every time Hostin starts telling her life story yet again. Jim Hughes

Nice spread

Bronx: Sunday’s “Photos from Around the World” were spectacular! Keep it up! Barbara Sulkowski

!#&@%

North Brunswick, N.J.: To Voicer Katherine Raymond: Watch your ding-dang language before l dip your ding-dang quill in liquid soap! BTW, you made my day — ding-dang it! Ea A. Mingo

Not fee-ling it

Massapequa, L.I.: To Voicer Paul Camilleri: I agree about Money Thrown Away (MTA) due to bad management and the MTA paying double for overtime for employees who didn’t even work for years, but I disagree with your suggestion that Amazon members should not only pay an annual fee for Prime, but pay an additional $1 surcharge for deliveries. I will never go into the city via train, bus, car, etc. the way it is now, and I rarely did in the past. It’s bad enough that we are all being taxed for the MTA through our utility bills, gas stations, etc. Jean Marie Chiaramonte

Futility of fealty

Manhattan: The dramatic Tuesday House vote defeating Speaker Mike Johnson’s resolution to impeach Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas may have been a political error by a House leadership that prioritizes loyalty to former President Donald Trump over border security. It does not deflect attention from its leadership’s cynical decision to reject the hard work of their Senate counterparts to craft a serious compromise immigration initiative. That noted, a censure would constitute an appropriate legislatively imposed sanction. President Biden has executive powers to do more to curb a porous Southern border that weakens U.S. security. However, congressional Republicans have again chosen genuflection to Trump over the national interest to address a clear governmental failure. Roger B. Adler

OK with death

Fort Worth, Texas: Talk about horrendous hypocrites. After demanding that Democrats find a solution to the border crisis, House Speaker Mike Johnson now says that any immigration bill is “dead on arrival,” which tragically ensures that many more immigrants will be “dead on arrival” before stepping on U.S. soil. It’s beyond my comprehension how the supposedly pro-life party can coldly watch as immigrant children continue to drown, caught in the razor wire that Republicans have placed in the Rio Grande. But I guess that’s not surprising, knowing that Republicans already sold their souls the minute they endorsed a lying, cheating, democracy-hating, dictator wannabe for president. Sharon Austry

Do not bend

Floral Park, L.I.: Former President Donald Trump and his paid supporters knew that Trump lost his 2020 presidential election. He did a lot of foolish things to stay in power. He did not realize that he would face consequences for that. He also thought there were enough justices appointed by him to help him. But if the Supreme Court is planning to do the right thing or follow the law, that’s definitely going to hurt Trump. If they ignore the law, that will be a success for Trump. For the sake of the people’s trust in our judicial system, please do the right thing and obey the law. God bless America. Mathai Easow

Guilty stance

Staten Island: If Trump really didn’t do anything wrong (as he says), he wouldn’t have asked for absolute immunity, and an innocent man would have demanded a speedy trial instead of trying to push it back. It’s beyond stupid that an educated society is debating this matter (total immunity) in a high court. Just lock him up already. Michael Rosenkrantz

Lowered count

Pearl River, N.Y.: To Voicer Ronnie Leiterman: Nobody but an unarmed female veteran who was murdered by a D.C. police officer was killed on Jan. 6. Do a little of the fact-checking that you lefties always like to throw around and stop spreading propaganda. People like you and the mainstream media keep on pushing the lie that people were killed on that day. They weren’t. You are part of the reason that this country is in such danger. When the stuff hits the fan — and it will, because of all the terrorists you Democrats let into this country — you will run and hide like the coward you are. Robert Brennan

Join me

Itasca, Ill.: My name is Jim. I’m a recovering voter struggling with confirmation bias (adopting a point of view, then only considering information that supports that view). I attribute my struggle with this affliction to congressional wrangling since Jan. 6, 2021. I counter this condition via journalists like S.E. Cupp, Gene Lyons, Mona Charen, Fareed Zakaria and David Brooks. They are my 12-step program to stop my slide into confirmation bias. The good news is that I hear this program still has openings — assuming that prospective members admit they have a problem. Jim Newton

Vigilante injustice

Staten Island: So, Curtis Sliwa’s gang jumps and beats some guy for allegedly trying to talk to the weasel and the guy who was beaten, lied about and besmirched gets a citation for disorderly conduct? NYPD, are you kidding me? A man is gang-assaulted and he gets cited? Please, for the love of our city, hire cops with brains and eyes. If Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg isn’t looking to arrest the gang members who beat this guy, then why have a DA at all? I, for one, demand that gang assaults like this be treated as the serious crimes they truly are. Vigilantes can not be allowed to act with impunity. That’s not law and order. Imagine 10 guys attacking you for simply existing. Would you feel good about it? Lock them up or explain why they get away with this gang assault — on live TV! Everyone saw it but the cops? Tom McGuire

Idle anti-immigrant idol

Los Angeles: Can anyone out there please help Curtis Sliwa get a real job so he can stop spending his days making up anti-immigrant stories for his own vanity? The sad irony is that migrant workers contribute far more to the economy and well-being of this city than this lowlife ever has. James Montalbano

Policy feedback

Brooklyn: To Voicer Vanessa Enger: Let me ask you a question. Migrants, or illegal immigrants, supposedly come here for a better life. They are not here to commit crimes and acts of violence against anyone, let alone against NYC’s Finest. Don’t worry, I’m an old-school letter writer, so my letter is on its way to Biden. Mariann Tepedino

Misplaced ire

Mineola, L.I.: To Voicer Daniel Dolgicer: I am in no way defending The New York Times, but why did you write a letter to The News castigating an article written by the Times? You should have directed your letter to the Times! Philip Martone

Triple Z

Bronx: If Mazi Pilip married Tom Suozzi, she’d be Mazi Suozzi. Fred Smith

The fall of the Roman Empire, aside from pre-occupying the minds of all modern American men evidently, is a cautionary tale for every advanced society, including ours.

That may sound alarmist, but trust me — our Coliseum is already crumbling.

One need only gaze upon our once noble and dignified body of government — Congress — to see the cracks in the bricks, thanks in no small part to the usurpation of the Republican Party by one Donald J. Trump.

Lest you thought his ouster in 2020 marked the end of dysfunction and chaos in Washington, the turbid depths to which the Republican Party can sink have only steepened, believe it or not.

And the Grand Old Party isn’t looking so grand these days, as it both comically and tragically pinballs from one incompetent and embarrassing episode to another. Ding, ding…ding, ding, ding.

Putting aside the ugly pall cast on the party by its embattled frontrunner for president — he’s facing 91 criminal charges in four separate indictments involving everything from fraud to insurrection — the Republican Party he built and shaped into his likeness is doing just as badly.

The dysfunction and self-destruction is nothing short of stunning. And just taking into account the most recent humiliations — literally from this one week — the Republican Party seems to be all but collapsing.

There was the failed effort to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, a wholly political exercise presumably meant to punish and embarrass the Biden administration. It had the opposite effect, however, when House Democrats outmaneuvered the Republicans, who failed to come up with the votes.

GOP House members were quick to complain about their self-own.

“I was embarrassed for our conference, for our party, because we can do better than we did last night,” Rep. Lance Gooden told CNN’s Manu Raju.

“He didn’t count votes,” said Rep. Ralph Norman of Speaker Mike Johnson. “I think he will next time.”

“When you are handed the keys to the kingdom…then when you have the majority there is an expectation that you will be able to govern. And we’ve just struggled with that over and over again,” said Rep. Steve Womack.

The stunt was such a failure of vote-counting that Rep. Matt Gaetz, who’d boastfully orchestrated the ouster of Speaker Kevin McCarthy last year with no plan for his replacement, was feeling a little wistful. “[W]ouldn’t it have been nice to still have Kevin McCarthy in the House of Representatives? Never thought you’d hear me say that.”

The debacle prompted others to question the wisdom of that hamfisted effort to defenestrate McCarthy. “Getting rid of Speaker McCarthy has officially turned into an unmitigated disaster,” Rep. Thomas Massie lamented. “Name one thing that’s improved under the new speaker.”

Over at the party’s governing body, the Republican National Committee, things are just as dysfunctional. There, chairwoman Ronna McDaniel announced she is stepping down — in the middle of an election year no less — due to pressure from Trump. (This is a woman who dropped her maiden name — Romney — because Trump didn’t like it, and yet he still sees her as insufficiently loyal to him.)

Gaetz, who, remember, ousted McCarthy over personal grievances, submitted his ringing endorsement of the former speaker for McDaniel’s replacement, tweeting, “Kevin is well organized and a very high-revenue fundraiser. He will also be well-liked by the RNC Committee.”

Then there’s the border bill disaster.

House Republicans tanked a bipartisan border bill, stuffed with provisions they’d long been asking for, because Trump — an unelected and four-time indicted private citizen — prefers to use the issue to get elected rather than solve it.

But the pyrrhic victory backfired. Reaching the pinnacle of utter uselessness, Republicans took an issue they were winning on — Biden’s broken border — and handed Democrats a very helpful talking point.

Afterwards, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell lamented that his party “can’t get an outcome.” And for backing a border bill, McConnell was blasted by Sen. Ted Cruz, who called for his replacement. “I think a Republican leader should actually lead this conference and should advance the priorities of Republicans.” (The border bill would have delivered on a number of Republican priorities.)

American politics has moved out of the dignity of the Roman Forum and into the vulgarity of the Coliseum, thanks in large part to Trump and his GOP.

And rather than govern or legislate, the Republican Party seems to prefer the theatrics of the Coliseum — bloody battles between gladiators and wild beasts, punctuated intermittently by magic shows, acrobats, and executions.

Can the GOP survive its own self-destruction? Does it want to?

For America’s sake, let’s hope so.

Because the last part of the quote is “And when Rome falls — the world.”

secuppdailynews@gmail.com

The best proof that the demand for a ceasefire is merely a recruitment tool is that the protests began on the day after the Hamas massacres and before there was any fire to cease, because Israel had not yet attacked Gaza. The protests continued during the multiday pause in fighting that resulted in the release of 100 hostages, and they will persist even if there is a longer ceasefire.

Nor have these protests called for the creation of a peaceful Palestinian state alongside Israel — a two-state solution. They demand one Palestinian state from the river to the sea, which means the end of Israel. The benevolent sounding call for a ceasefire serves to attract useful idiots to hold signs demanding the end of Israel “from the river to the sea.“

This is not the first time that young people have been led into bigotry by pied pipers of hate. In the 1930s, many students at universities such as Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Oxford, and Cambridge were led by their elders to believe that Hitler and his Nazi Party were the only answer to communism. On the other side, many students were seduced by their professors into believing that Stalin and communism were the only answer to fascism.

In the 1960s, many students supported Castro and displayed pictures of his murderous accomplice Che Guevara on their dorm walls and T-shirts. Some supported Mao Zedong and even the genocidal Pol Pot. There is no limit to the naïveté and willingness of some young zealots to embrace any cause that sounds exciting or bold, regardless of the harm it threatens.

Those who try to excuse, justify, or even explain the attractiveness of these unattractive causes to young people on the ground that “they are just kids,” ignore the lessons of history. Many of these kids will become our future leaders and will remain influenced by their exposure to these malevolent philosophies. Others will grow out of them and regret their youthful indiscretions but will be hurt because in their future careers, as former Communists were during McCarthyism.

There is no easy solution to the problem of young extremists who refuse to listen to reason or learn from history. Each new generation of zealots believes they have discovered “justice” and those who refuse to go along are regressive.

Now, the spiritual heirs to these ill-informed past supporters of hate are marching for Hamas which proudly claims responsibility for massacring and kidnapping more than 1,500 Israelis. Some are even saying they approve of Osama Bin Laden.

One disturbing similarity among these youthful cults of hatred is that they all eventually blame “the Jews” for the evil they claim to be combatting. As August Bebel observed, “antisemitism is the socialism of fools.” The description fits many of the current haters who say they support “socialism” (though few are familiar with its mixed history). They are indeed fools for following their evil pied pipers into waters that drown principles, decency, and progress.

Stalin understood this phenomenon and exploited it by making antisemitism a central part of his Bolshevik agenda because he regarded most of his followers as easily manipulable fools.

Hitler, too, understood this, deliberately misnaming his fascist followers as members of the “National Socialist Party.” He, too, used antisemitism to attract useful idiots among students.

The leaders of the current protests understand, too, that there is no overestimating the foolishness of many of today’s lemming students who will follow any radical opposition to establishment values.

The woke, progressive, intersectional, diversity, equity and inclusion mindset is a path to disaster for our nation, and especially for Jews, Asians and white male heterosexuals who are excluded from their zero-sum game. But it is the only game in town for many youngsters who need to rebel against their parents, their heritage, and the values with which they were brought up.

This is a generational battle, and we are losing it to the pied pipers of hate who are willing to exploit the ignorance and closed mindedness that many current “educators“ have inflicted on our youth.

Intergenerational battles are hard to win because our ideological adversaries, whose support for Hamas we may hate, are often people we love. Still, we must engage thoughtfully and persistently. We cannot afford to give up on them and on our future.

Dershowitz’s latest book is “War Against the Jews: How to End Hamas Barbarism.”

The developers pushing this controversial project have only one goal: to enrich themselves at the expense of the public. Casinos are not a panacea for societal ills. In fact, they do the opposite: they cause more damage. Flashy renderings, the dubious promise of jobs, and free food giveaways cannot change the fact that a casino would further harm and exploit our community.

The cynical casino developers have tried to sell us a dream that “The Coney” will revitalize our neighborhood. But we know from academic research that casinos lower the retail sales of their surrounding businesses, and any jobs they create are offset by greater regional job losses. They also exacerbate addiction, domestic violence, and bankruptcy, causing local taxpayers to bear the burden of providing further social services.

The only reason the developers are now reaching out to the community is that their application for a gaming license requires public support. The casino developers are trying to buy that support with heavy lobbying, misinformation, and backroom deals.

The racial undertones and bad optics of the promotional efforts for “The Coney” have not been lost on us. Research has shown consistently that Black Americans have more than double the rate of gambling addiction than other racial groups. That fact has not prevented the team of developers behind this project from sinking to historic levels of sleaziness by taking out an ad in the Amsterdam News (a Black newspaper) for Kwanzaa and suggesting that the best way to celebrate this African-American holiday is by embracing a casino project in Coney Island.

They continue to further disgrace themselves by using local children as unwilling walking billboards, dressing mainly Black, Asian and Latino kids in casino-branded athletic wear, some of whom are just toddlers under the age of 5, a marketing tactic reminiscent of the tobacco industry’s ploy to turn minors into smokers.

A casino will not provide Coney Island with “community benefits.” Casinos are designed to isolate people, locking them inside while draining as much of their hard-earned money as possible that would otherwise support families and their host community.

There is no room in our already gridlocked amusement area for this type of disruptive project. The casino as planned would cause traffic congestion in the area’s two most crowded streets: W. 12th St. and Stillwell Ave. Emergency vehicles rushing down Surf Ave. are often delayed due to traffic jams. A casino makes it all worse.

If the state and city are hoping for tax revenue from this project, they will be extremely disappointed. “High-rollers” will not be visiting this isolated casino. It would become an attraction for local people of limited means who can least afford to gamble. Adjacent small businesses will suffer.

The state’s Request for Proposal (RFP) for the casino requires financial stability for the applicants. “The Coney’s” lead partner, Thor Equities, has recently defaulted on loans, losing major multi-million dollar properties through foreclosure. In 2020 Thor was sued for $338 million in missed loan payments.

For two decades, Thor’s CEO Joe Sitt has allowed his historic Coney Island properties to deteriorate into eyesores, some of which required demolition. Sitt is attempting to polish his image by hiring a rogues’ gallery of questionable lobbyists and political hacks willing to sell themselves to push a flawed casino project. We, the residents of Coney Island, refuse to bail out Sitt.

Last year, Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso held a town hall meeting to gather public input. Seventy-five percent of the responses were firmly against the casino. For too long Coney Island has been influenced by outsiders. None of the developers working for “The Coney” lives in Coney Island.

A March 2023 headline in Politico declared that New York casino contracts are “an absolute petri dish for corruption.” The article revealed that millions of dollars are being spent on casino lobbying, and that “Good government groups worry the mix of big money, fierce competition and political signoff creates a breeding ground for corruption.” Coney Island doesn’t need the corruption that comes with casinos.

Denson is executive director of the Coney Island History Project. Frontus is interim executive director of the Coney Island Neighborhood Revitalization Corp. Shirayanagi is a Coney Island-based journalist and dad. Stewart is a life-long Coney Island resident and community activist.

Under the Constitution, impeachment and treaties require two-thirds of the Senate to agree. And that one senator can stop everything pushes lawmakers toward moderation and consensus. Or that’s the way it should be.

However, one longtime member of the club, Republican leader Mitch McConnell, has lost his way and forgotten about compromise and consensus. And he does know better, as next year will be his 40th year in the Senate.

It was McConnell who insisted that desperately needed aid for Ukraine battling back Putin’s invading legions, as well as assistance for besieged Israel and Taiwan, be twinned with immigration reforms and border legislation. And so negotiations began more than four months ago between Democrat Chris Murphy and Republican James Lankford, along with independent Kyrsten Sinema.

They produced an imperfect deal that was acceptable to both sides and that President Biden was ready to sign. But then McConnell and his GOP pals chickened out when Donald Trump denounced the pact and said it should be sunk.

McConnell voted to kill it yesterday, as did most of the Republicans. Lankford was only joined by fellow Republicans Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski and Mitt Romney in supporting the agreement. Collins, Murkowski and Romney are not afraid of Trump and they are three of the four Republicans still in the Senate who voted to convict Trump during his impeachment trial on Feb. 13, 2021 for orchestrating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.

Seven Republicans joined all 50 Democrats, but another 10 Republicans were needed for the 67 threshold that could have forever barred Trump from any public office again. Oh, how that should have happened. Today’s U.S. Supreme Court argument over Trump’s qualifications under the 14th Amendment insurrection clause wouldn’t have been needed.

Lankford gave an impassioned speech yesterday on C-SPAN2 about the value of the deal that he worked hard to craft. It had many flaws, but it was a compromise. Among Democrats, the naysayers were just Bob (Gold Bullion) Menendez and four lefties, including Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren

We happened to be watching Lankford on C-SPAN2 on the afternoon of Jan. 6, 2021, when at 2:10, dutifully pushing Trump’s lie as the Senate debated accepting the Electoral College results from a state that Trump clearly lost, said: “My challenge today is not about the good people of Arizona.”

Lankford was then interrupted by some noise and the presiding officer, Chuck Grassley (the only senator with more seniority than McConnell) said, “The Senate will stand in recess until the call of the chair” as an aide whispered to Lankford: “protesters are in the building.”

C-SPAN2 soon went black as senators fled and the barbarians invaded the chamber and the face-painted, shirtless, horned and fur draped QAnon Shaman with his spear sat in the vice president’s chair at the rostrum.

Another 10 Republicans would have ended forever the threat of Trump and Trumpism. McConnell and Lankford should have been two of those 10.

They didn’t undershoot; it turns out, the additional revenue is likely much higher, climbing to around $561 billion between 2024 and 2034 when factoring in not only additional enforcement but other benefits of the expanded capacity, which Republicans had of course stringently opposed.

There’s something a little bit ironic about the GOP legislators who are claiming with a straight face that Donald Trump simply cannot be prosecuted for his many sustained efforts to subvert the 2020 election — efforts that, remember, included strong-arming state electoral officials and discussions of invoking the Insurrection Act to deploy troops on American streets — insisting that more IRS agents was tyranny.

Increased revenues will be presented as extracting more taxes from the public, but that’s disingenuous for at least four reasons. One, none of these are additional taxes; they are the taxes that were already owed and that wealthier people were often not paying, knowing that accounting tricks and the under-resourced IRS would insulate them from ever having to pony up. Two, the vast majority of these increases are not being drawn from struggling families or low-income taxpayers but from those well-to-do people who owed much more but paid much less.

Three, this analysis isn’t just about tax cheats and the benefits of enforcement; it specifically notes that it is incorporating additional revenues from technology that makes compliance easier, as well as the “nudge” towards compliance that the specter of additional enforcement brings. Four, this isn’t about milking a decrepit economy for more government revenues; the economy is booming in defiance of many dire predictions.

Elected officials will mostly at least pay lip service to the idea of some return on public investment, and it’s hard to argue with an $80 billion down payment producing an almost half-trillion-dollar return even after paying for itself. This isn’t just a question about scoring political points, this is real money that can be used for concrete public purposes — more infrastructure, green energy incentives, transit projects, whatever. Real, tangible things that can improve people’s lives.

That House Republicans are obsessed with stripping the IRS’ expanded funding away, having clawed back as much as $21 billion in future disbursements from the IRA’s historic investment, gives away the game that they’re quite uninterested in the rich paying their taxes. Simultaneously, they’re fretting about an increasing federal deficit, willfully ignoring the connection between that and decreased tax revenues.

Instead of shying away from taking credit for an expanded IRS, Democrats should own it and communicate to the public just why this is an excellent deal. People might have a negative knee-jerk reaction to the idea of federal tax agents collecting Uncle Sam’s cut, but it sounds a lot better when you frame it as the rich subsidizing everyone’s child care and housing, building roads and softening the financial impact of medical emergencies.

Put that all forward, and let the GOP tie itself in knots explaining why a multi-millionaire should pay nothing in federal taxes instead.

Long Island City: The Monday report on the Ch. 4 6 o’clock news regarding overcrowding on the No. 7 platform at Grand Central was totally misleading and wrong. Ch. 4 must have been spoon fed the story by the MTA rather than doing its own investigative reporting on the subject.

As any regular commuter who uses that platform knows, the crowding problem is a direct result of the closure of the two mid-station escalators for replacement and the MTA’s narrowing of the platform mid-station as a result of the boarding up for construction that they did.

The replacement of the two escalators will take about a year, as the recent replacement of the two escalators at the Third Ave. end of the platform did. It is ridiculous that the replacements take a year to complete. It is because of the bureaucratic incompetence of the MTA, as confirmed to me by a number of outside contractors I spoke to during the replacement of the two Third Ave. escalators.

The incompetence and wasteful spending of money by the MTA is well known. Now they’ve decided to put in place congestion pricing to waste more money.

A painless way to raise funding for the MTA is to put a $1 surcharge on all packages that are delivered by Amazon and all the other delivery services for online purchases. Paul Camilleri

No credit

Manhattan: Mayor Adams’ program to provide $5.3 million to provide migrants with free prepaid credit cards for food is the height of insanity. The migrants will sell these credit cards for a few dollars on the street just to get much-needed cash. Tell Adams we will not vote for him for a second term if he proceeds with this project. Cecilia K. Gullas

Apply elsewhere

Cornwall, N.Y.: So, now we can beat the crap out of NYPD cops in the middle of the street and nothing happens to these criminals? Where is the outrage? Where is the City Council on this? I bet if one of the brave officers discharged his weapon, City Council members would get involved. They would say, “You didn’t need to discharge your weapon.” I am sorry — when you get hit and kicked in the back of your head, you have every right to shoot. Cops are afraid to fight back because their lives will get ruined. Take this advice if you are thinking about joining the NYPD or if you’re a member: Get out. The city officials and judges don’t give a crap about you. Take the Orange County, Rockland County, Westchester County and state police exams. These counties love and respect the men and women in blue. Raymond Grosskopf

Legal, in fact

Manhattan: To Voicer Mariann Tepedino: It’s a federal crime to transport illegal immigrants across state lines. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is not about to commit a federal crime with each busload to teach N.Y. a lesson. The migrants arriving in NYC have the permission of the Biden administration to enter the U.S. — they’re not illegal immigrants. Vanessa Enger

Deal-breakers

Greenburgh, N.Y.: I was thrilled to read that Congress failed to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. If Republicans in the House who are concerned about border insecurity want to impeach anyone, they should impeach themselves for failing to support the bipartisan compromise immigration plan the Senate is pushing. Their reason: They don’t want to give President Biden a win. They are putting Trump over America, and that is an impeachable offense. Paul Feiner

Hypocritical

Brooklyn: Voters should know that despite Donald Trump’s fulminations about “illegal immigration,” Melania Trump, his wife, entered the United States and worked here illegally. After marrying Trump, she brought her family over via “chain migration.” Herman Kolender

Zip it

Beverly Hills, Calif.: Has anyone noticed that Donald Trump has a mouth larger than a crocodile? All he does is yap way too much! Now he’s getting most of his words mixed up, just like his brain. Does he have one? Seems like it’s all emotions when he talks. That’s no surprise. He is talking about himself like always. Trump thinks he is the greatest man on Earth. Get over it, Trump, now! That’s how you will make America great again! Is this clear? Margo Kent

Missed a few

Jersey City: To Voicer Ken Byrnes: Bravo for telling it like it is about Trump. You forgot to mention how he got away with not being in the Army during the Vietnam War. I didn’t have that privilege and served in the war. Also, the Trump University fiasco. It never ends; we don’t need all this drama from this spoiled, fat brat. Anthony C. Zaccone

Unacceptable record

Yonkers: As a registered Republican, I will not be voting Republican in the 2024 election if Donald Trump is the chosen candidate for president. He caused the deaths of thousands by denying the gravity of COVID, which in turn delayed the development of a vaccine. He gave generous tax cuts to the wealthy and meager cuts to the middle class. He praised despots and authoritarians and aligned himself with Putin. He withdrew the U.S. from the Paris Climate Accord, the Iran nuclear deal and the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which allowed advances for China. Trump committed bank fraud by falsifying his financial statements. He is morally corrupt and has had several infidelities while married. Books have been written by several of his close former associates that describe his transgressions and psychopathic behavior. Worst of all, Trump led an insurrection attempt to overthrow our government on Jan. 6, 2021. Another four years of a Trump presidency? God forbid! Joan Cavalluzzi

Non-negotiables

Ossining, N.Y.: Voicer Pete deMatteo suggests he would vote for President Biden, but we are involved in “three wars,” so maybe Trump will get his vote. The prime directive for any president is to protect Americans from all threats, domestic and foreign, and defend the Constitution. To that end, Biden has done his job. Our support for Israel and Ukraine and keeping international waterways safe is precisely what he should be doing. Standing up to invading dictators of allies should be a cause we support. The former guy, however, would have let Putin take what he wanted. He also failed at protecting us from enemies and attacked our Constitution. Remember Jan. 6, when domestic enemies sacked our Capitol? Trump encouraged and allowed it. But absent all that, what does it say about us when so many still support a proven immoral liar, cheat, fraud, sexual predator and grifter? Robert Rundbaken

Empty boasts

Staten Island: I am tired of reading the whiny responses from the Donald Trump supporters in the Voice of the People. What exactly did he do for you? Michael Rosenkrantz

Nuclear option

Mamaroneck, N.Y.: It seems counterproductive for Donald Trump to endorse President Biden canceling the 2024 presidential election and unlawfully remaining in power with full immunity simply because it is for the good of our country. But it sounds like a plan. Paul Matthews

Lateral move

Carle Place, L.I.: Congressional candidate Mazi Pilip is the least-qualified candidate I’ve seen since the last GOP pick, George Santos. Enough said. Rudy Rosenberg

Accidental lewdness

Brooklyn: Your photo caption (Feb. 5, page 16) about Taylor Swift “pulling a train” at the Grammys is a double-loser. Firstly, I had to ask my husband what he found so funny about it. Despite a rather extensive “locker room” vocabulary, I wasn’t aware of the double-entendre, meaning she was sexually accommodating a group of men. Secondly, this disparaging comment is inaccurate. Her success is due to hard work and talent, not putting in time putting out on the casting couch. Barbara Krooss

Dangerous game

Hamden, Conn.: Future doctor Kate Cunningham rightly warned fans of Taylor Swift against the brain and body damage caused by football (“Swifties, beware football’s risks,” op-ed, Feb. 7). Unlike basketball and baseball, invented here but played worldwide, football appeals only in the U.S. Seventeen minutes of deadly action per game, with hours of ads, analysis and penalties! Maybe Swifties will help end this carnage so that football joins boxing on the ash heap of major sports. Petra Peter Gardella