Letter to the Editor: Don’t reward wealthy

Pitched as a tax cut for all, anyone who looks at the cuts in corporate taxes, elimination of estate taxes and creation of lower tax rate for pass-thru income knows that these cuts are aimed at benefiting the super wealthy.

The proposed cuts will increase the deficit by $1.5 trillion during a decade that will see Medicare run out of money. For years Republicans have been warning about Medicare spending, the deficit and balancing the budget. With no plans for dealing with deficits other than cutting Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security, it is wildly irresponsible to propose a budget busting tax cut when we already have a growing economy and low unemployment.

Americans believe in a meritocracy that rewards hard work, innovation and entrepreneurship. The proposed tax cuts mainly benefit passive owners of stock and property and offspring whose main accomplishment is choosing the right parents.

Justice Louis Brandeis warned the nation that " We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both." Passage of these tax cuts will move us from a "Plutocracy" that already threatens our democracy to an "Inheritocracy" where "the rich own everything and everyone else is on their own".

Tell Representative Walden that we want real bipartisan tax reform!

Richard Davis

The Dalles