GOP must explain thinking on tax cuts

I have always supported the President's desire to work with Republicans on all the legislation that he's tried to pass since the election. But by now it should be clear to him that they just don't want to work with him to solve any of this country's problems.

So now it is time for him to show some intestinal fortitude and fight for what is right for the whole country, not just the upper 5 percent of its citizens. A compromise on the extension of the Bush tax cuts would be to go from the $240,000 income cutoff, and raise that to $500,000. Then let the Republicans tell the 95 percent of America why they can't accept that.

Even Ronald Reagan's former top economic adviser, David Stockman, says that the rich have been favored over the last three decades, and a tax increase on those wealthy individuals is not only morally right, and it is imperative to getting the debt under control.

Then instead of horse trading the extension of unemployment benefits to those who need help, let the Republicans justify to the country why they don't want to help those without jobs because the Republicans screwed up the economy for eight years.

Let the president put the Republicans' feet to the fire, and place the blame where it belongs. Republicans preach reduction of the deficit but don't want to raise taxes on the rich, who were made so much richer during the Bush years, to help reduce it. Let the Republicans tell the country why it is best to have more money and power concentrated in the top 5 percent of our citizens. Whenever they preach “trickle down economics” it just seems like yellow rain to the rest of the country.

Ken Glassman

Arlington Heights