Tax breaks make middle class subservient

In the Nov. 11 Opinion views to the Herald, "Give credit to the good done by the wealthy," it sounded as if it was Mr. Andersen"s contention that we should give tax breaks to the wealthy and they, among other things, can decide which colleges, charities, churches and political parties to donate to. Besides, he claims that the recent tax cuts for big business created more jobs this year and a more booming economy, when in fact those economic improvements have been on the same steady climb each year since President Obama turned the economy around beginning in 2010.

The GOP tries to convince us that the wealthy are the main job creators. It's simply not true. They earn almost 1,000 times the median American income annually, but don't buy thousands of times more stuff that add to the economy. And the big tax breaks corporations receive are often socked away in savings, where it does little good for the country and/or they buy more stock, which only helps those who can afford stocks rather than creating new jobs or giving monetary incentives to middle-income employees. It has been proven repeatedly that "trickle down" is a deception.

Despite an increase of worker productivity, corporate profits increased 13 percent per year since 2000 so that CEO pay is now up to 900 times that of the average employee. Those are not "far left" contentions, they are verifiable statistics. Income inequality is at historically high levels and getting worse every day.

I once read, "A thriving middle class is the source of American prosperity, not a consequence of it." This means that the middle class should be given huge tax cuts, not the wealthy as Republicans would have us believe.

Keith Marvin

Hanover Park