RE “KERRY says entitlements must be addressed’’ (Political Intelligence, Metro, Sept. 11): With the proportion of taxes received from corporations and the wealthy at a 30-year low and the middle class under brutal attack by those same interests, Senator John Kerry insists that the so-called deficit problem has something to do with Social Security and Medicare. The fact that these programs are largely self-funded is apparently not germane. This thinking is typical of corporate Democrats such as Kerry.
For imperial adventures in Iraq, Libya, and Pakistan, money magically materializes. And the deficit doesn’t appear to be an issue when preserving the Bush tax cuts or tax breaks for hedge funds or passing more NAFTA-style trade deals that cost American jobs but pad corporate bottom lines.
Vermont has Bernie Sanders, but maybe with the election of an Alan Khazei or Elizabeth Warren we can get a senator who will fight to restore the middle class instead of seeing that its tax money is funneled to the richest among us.
Christopher Patton
Lexington 
