Time for some middle-class tax breaks
April 15 looms. It’s no surprise that most of us do not look forward to it.
For years we have heard politicians talk ad nauseam about cutting taxes. Congress has trimmed and cut. With what result?
Like most middle-class taxpayers, I will pay roughly the same amount of my income in federal taxes this year —about 16 percent —as I would have in 1960. But the richest Americans will pay up to two-thirds less than they would have 50 years ago.
Meanwhile, global corporations have made tax-dodging a central part of their business strategies. Between 1998 and 2005, nearly two-thirds of profitable U.S. companies did not pay taxes at least one year. That is simply unfair.
Civilized society costs money. It is time to reverse 50 years of unequal and unfair tax shift and re-balance the tax system. Congress should let tax cuts on incomes over $250,000 expire at the end of 2010.
Congress should move to ensure that corporations that make profits in this country pay their fair share for the institutions, services and infrastructure on which they rely.
It is time for a more productive, more honest conversation about taxes.
— Jack Hanson, Seattle
Who will pay for deficits?
Whenever Sens. Maria Cantwell and Patty Murray, as well as Congressman Rick Larsen write to me to explain one of their votes on increasing spending, they always justify their vote by saying that it was in the best interests of the citizens of Washington state.
Fair enough. But now we know that they have adjusted the federal income-tax system so that only half of the citizens pay income taxes.
So when they send the budget, Medicare and Social Security into massive deficits, whose best interests do they have in mind? The half who pays the tax, or the half that doesn’t?
— Robert O’Donnell, Everson