To the editor:<\/p>\n
In the aftermath of the Great Depression and World War II, our Congress and world politicians began to realize their main job was not only to protect but also improve the lives of its citizens.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Starting in the 1930s into the 1960s, several presidents and congresses created Social Security,\u00a0\u00a0Medicare and Medicaid, developed regulations to prevent bank failures, empowered unions setting a minimum wage and developed the GI Bill providing returning World War II veterans the ability to afford a home and a college education. All of this required funding through taxation.<\/p>\n
But today 1% of Americans hold 32% of our country\u2019s wealth. They are the ultra-wealthy (Ultra-millionaires and billionaires), and they have found multiple ways to avoid paying their fair share of taxes.\u00a0\u00a0Per a ProPublica 2021 Report, between 2014-2018:\u00a0Buffet paid .1%,\u00a0Bezos paid .98%,\u00a0Bloomberg paid 1.3%, and Musk paid 3.27% in taxes.\u00a0<\/p>\n
One of the ways the ultra-wealthy avoid taxes is to be paid in stock. Their stock is not taxable until it\u2019s sold. They accumulate their wealth by taking one yearly bank loan after another (at minimal interest) on their stock holdings, using that loan to pay for their lavish lifestyles and to repay their previous year\u2019s loan debt without ever selling their stock.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
In 2025, the Republican-led Congress passed a tax bill that gave even more tax breaks to the rich. This bill resulted in an increase of $3.4 trillion to the national debt.<\/p>\n
At the same time that Congressional Republicans gave large tax cuts to the rich, they greatly cut essential services for middle- and lower-income individuals and families. As a result of these cuts:<\/p>\n
\u2022\u00a0 The average Affordable Care Act premiums for 20 million Americans were doubled<\/p>\n
\u2022\u00a0 More than 300 rural hospitals were forced to cut services or close entirely<\/p>\n
\u2022\u00a0 Medicaid payments were reduced by $863 billion, affecting 10 million individuals and families.<\/p>\n
\u2022\u00a0 SNAP payments were reduced by $120 billion, increasing food insecurity for 4 million individuals and families<\/p>\n
\u2022\u00a0 The cost of student loans increased, making college less affordable\t<\/p>\n
\u2022\u00a0 Republicans in Congress are not focused on helping the average citizen, and they are placing the U.S. deeper in debt.<\/p>\n
Other countries limit the amount of money wealthy donors and corporations can contribute to politicians.\u00a0Not so in the U.S.\u00a0In 2010, the U.S. Supreme Court dramatically opened up more political influence for wealthy donors and corporations with the Citizens United ruling.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Today, Trump and the Republican-controlled Congress have made it a keynote to allow the rich to increase the flow of money into political campaigns.<\/p>\n
Please call your Congressional representative and senators and tell them to structure the tax code to ensure the ultra-rich pay their fair share of taxes, to reduce our National Debt, and to focus on improving programs supporting the average citizen.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s patriotic to pay our taxes. Let\u2019s push to make sure our tax system is fair.<\/p>\n
Kenneth Peterson<\/p>\n
MAJ U.S. Army (Ret.)<\/p>\n
Punta Gorda<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"To the editor: In the aftermath of the Great Depression and World War II, our Congress and world…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":120266,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[209,211,210],"class_list":["post-253512","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral-headlines","tag-cape-coral-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253512","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=253512"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253512\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/120266"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=253512"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=253512"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=253512"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}