What’s happened to this country?

What’s happened to this country?

What is going on in this country? We can send billions to other countries all over the world. We can rebuild Iraq but we can’t rebuild Detroit?

Detroit was once a booming town. Workers were able to make a decent living, but many millionaires were also created. Where are they now? We bailed out Wall Street, why can’t they help us now?

For some reason Republicans don’t think we should raise taxes on the wealthy to increase revenue. Even though corporations are making record profits, one in four pay no taxes — many oil companies do not pay taxes yet receive government subsidies. We could save billions by getting rid of these subsidies, tax capital gains, stop letting companies defer taxes on offshore profits, close loopholes and offshore tax havens.

The gap between rich and poor is growing. Salaries of CEOs is now more than 200 percent higher than workers. We didn’t have these economic problems when the wealthy paid their fair share — the tax rate for the rich has gone from 70 percent under Reagan to 35 percent and the GOP wants to lower it more.

So who is to pay? Well, conservatives think the poor and middle class should pay. They say take away food stamps, meals on wheels, and head start from these lazy people who don’t want to work, even though many work two or three jobs. They say take away those huge pensions of teachers, police and firefighters even though they fund their own pensions and deserve every penny — you would think they were getting millions when the average pension is $19,000; hardly above the poverty level. Welfare mothers didn’t create bank failures, or the downturn of our economy.

I thought this was a Christian country where we helped the poor and unfortunate when they need help.

Cecile Powell

Huntley