CLASS WARFARE

Enough class warfare

In response to two letters (May 9): The writers essentially assert that there is not enough “investment” by people other than the working classes (“Start investing”) and that if one feels that they have already given enough of their income to the government in taxes, then one isn’t “patriotic” (“A patriot is …”).

I’d like ask all these writers (and anyone who agrees with their premises) who exactly they are accusing of not investing in America and being unpatriotic when, according to Jennifer Rubin’s op-ed (“Soaking the rich won’t solve debt problem,” May 8), “the percentage of U.S. households paying no federal income tax … reached 51 percent for 2009” (from the Wall Street Journal and the Joint Committee on Taxation)?

Is it the 51 percent of people who pay no taxes? Or are they asking the top 10 percent of income earners (which means incomes of more than $114,000 per year, and which includes a majority of small businesses that provide most of the jobs in America) — who already pay more than 69 percent of all the taxes paid to the federal government — to give up more of their hard-earned incomes to the 51 percent who are looting the system by demanding government services but paying nothing for those services?

Who, may I ask, is being un-patriotic and not investing in America? The people who actually pay the taxes or the ones who make up more than half of our population?

Greed and envy are ugly no matter how you try to dress it up as “patriotism” or “investment.” Stop with the class warfare. Start looking for new alternatives to our current tax system instead of continuing to vilify those who have more money than yourself (or those whose money you’d like to spend for them).

A Fair Tax system, which would require everyone to pay the same percentage of their income (and end loopholes and deductions for everyone) would generate more revenue and would put an end to the pettiness of the class warfare crowd.

Andrea Mayer- Bruestle, Woodbury