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All levels of the economic spectrum should answer for abuses
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Recent events remind me of Marie Antoinette. Before she lost her head to the French Revolution, someone mentioned to her that the people were without bread. Her thoughtful response was: "Let them eat cake."
I am a member of the Republican Party but my party is overwhelmed today by the Let Them Eat Cake Party. The last time I felt 100 percent Republican was under Eisenhower.
I am old enough to remember all the government surpluses as Bill Clinton left office. I cannot remember exactly what happened after that except the government started wars and cut someone else's taxes. Does not history tell us wars cost money and are a reasonable basis for raising taxes?
It has recently been suggested that our fiscal problems come from fostering the lazy and the shiftless and by people who have made a generational habit of standing at the government trough. I agree that there are people taking advantage of the system. I also believe that the number of lazy and shiftless is less than some would suggest. I think it possible that most who do not pay federal income taxes are hard-working people and that the abusers are a small fraction.
There are also lazy and shiftless abusers of the system at the highest levels of income. Some may be living off the efforts of their grandparents. And then there are those with wealth supporting favorite politicians rewarded by extraordinary government assistance or tax breaks. It seems to me that abuse of the system by those who eat cake should be addressed with tough love as well.
Can abuse at both ends of our political-economic system be eliminated? I doubt it. But I would prefer the election of a president who claims to serve more than half the people and who will make people at all levels of the economic scale uncomfortable with their abuse.
SAMUEL L. DOUGLASS
Upper St. Clair
First Published October 18, 2012 12:00 am
