Taxes have become all too pervasive

Taxes have become all too pervasive

When are many American people going to wake up? I’ve been hearing various opinions about the need for wealthy Americans to pay higher taxes. Nobody in this country needs higher taxes.

I don’t think a lot of people fully realize the extent to which we are taxed. Taxation occurs when we earn money, when we spend money, when we save money and when we inherit money. Our property is taxed. Gasoline, hotels, cigarettes and alcohol all have “special” taxes. Our electric, gas, water, phone and cable bills are taxed. Licenses, city stickers, permits and tolls are taxes.

Many times we are double- and triple-taxed on money we’ve already been taxed on. How could anyone think we need more taxes?

Federal, state and local taxing bodies do not have revenue problems. They have chaotic spending and rampant fraud problems. If we could cut the unnecessary, wasteful, pork-barrel spending by 50 percent and reduce the fraud in Social Security, Medicare, welfare and pensions by 50 percent, we would have more money than we’d know what to do with.

It’s time to stop the chaos in our government. Hardworking Americans should not have to continually pay higher taxes to fund our governmental leaders’ incompetence.

Tim Ewert

Wood Dale