Progressive taxes would lessen pain

Communism asserted that labor is the source of all wealth, a false oversimplification. Many libertarians assert that capital is the source of wealth, also a false oversimplification. Wealth and prosperity come from a complicated combination of ideas, capital, planning, marketing, labor, distribution and a market than can afford the product.

In a modified free market system like ours, much of the capital comes from investments from middle class folks who buy stocks and bonds. Raising the tax to 50 and 60 percent on income of more $500,000 and $1 million, respectively, does not cut capital available appreciably and to claim so is just a fiction by the spiteful and jealous to justify cutting the safety net for the lower middle class and poor.

Reasonable progressives do not want confiscatory rates, like the 90 percent-plus tax rates on millionaires, during the Eisenhower years, which only worked back then because there were so many loopholes that such rates were rarely actually collected. But those who have achieved the most, blessed by our system, should be able to share in the sacrifices by paying a bit more so we can get the budget under control, with minimum actual pain.

Bob Lambert

Lake in the Hills