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Hardworking Americans are benefiting whom?

The Walton family, sitting on a fortune of $90 billion through their ownership of Wal-Mart stock, paid 15 percent in federal taxes on a dividend payout that was accelerated to prevent their paying a tax rate of more than 40 percent. At the same time, members of this family are aggressively promoting public tax money-financed vouchers for private schools across the nation. Wal-Mart is also notorious for paying its employees such low wages that many of them qualify for Medicaid, another program financed by public tax money.

The Waltons freely spend money earned by the general public on private schools while leaving it to public money to make up for their workers’ low wages. This shows the incredible hypocrisy of the Waltons and their claimed belief in “rewards for hard work.” The real question is who actually benefits from the labors of hard working Americans?” Is it those same “hardworking Americans”? Or, is it the oligarchs who use their wealth to control legislators who then enact legislation that uses public money for their patrons’ favorite institutions, thus allowing the Waltons and others like them to amass even more wealth?

Karen Wagner

Rolling Meadows

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