In a recent letter to the editor, a writer referred to “unfairly low tax rates for people making over $250,000 a year” (“Republicans ignore positive economic news,” April 29).
Either this writer is totally unfamiliar with our tax laws or is simply trying to distort the truth.
The largest source of U.S. government revenue is the personal income tax.
Our current tax laws are written so that the upper-income 25 percent of Americans pays 96 percent of the personal income tax.
That leaves the remaining vast majority to pay only 4 percent of the total.
These are accepted, published facts, not someone’s speculation. The upper-income 25 percent creates most of the jobs in America. They could create many more jobs if their capital wasn’t being siphoned off to Washington for boondoggle “programs.”
Yep, there’s unfair taxation all right, unfair to those who ought to be allowed to use more of their resources to generate jobs.
http://www.tennessean.com/article/20100510/OPINION02/100507043/1007/OPINION/Upper-income+people+generate+employmentThe first thing that comes to my mind is anyone with money in their pocket, be it saved or spent, is generating somebody's employment.
Secondly, for private wealth defenders like the one linked above, who may live in a state of constant aggitation over government "boondoggles," I would have them consider the following:The Winchester Mystery House is a well-known California mansion that was under construction continuously for 38 years, and is reported to be haunted. It once was the personal residence of Sarah Winchester, the widow of gun magnate William Wirt Winchester, but is now a tourist attraction. Under Winchester's day-to-day guidance, its "from-the-ground-up" construction proceeded around-the-clock, without interruption, from 1884 until her death on September 5, 1922, at which time work immediately ceased. The cost for such constant building has been estimated at about US $5.5 million(if paid in 1922, this would be equivalent to almost $70 million in 2008 dollars).
The mansion is renowned for its size and utter lack of any master building plan. According to popular belief, Winchester thought the house was haunted by the ghosts of individuals killed by Winchester rifles, and that only continuous construction would appease them. It is located at 525 South Winchester Blvd. in San Jose, California.More to read at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winchester_Mystery_HouseWinchester Mystery House™ is an extravagant maze of Victorian craftsmanship – marvelous, baffling, and eerily eccentric, to say the least. Tour guides must warn people not to stray from the group or they could be lost for hours! Countless questions come to mind as you wander through the mansion – such as, what was Mrs. Winchester thinking when she had a staircase built that descends seven steps and then rises eleven?
Some of the architectural oddities may have practical explanations. For example, the Switchback Staircase, which has seven flights with forty four steps, rises only about nine feet, since each step is just two inches high. Mrs. Winchester arthritis was quite severe in her later years, and the stairway may have been designed to accommodate her disability.
The miles of twisting hallways are made even more intriguing by secret passageways in the walls. Mrs. Winchester traveled through her house in a roundabout fashion, supposedly to confuse any mischievous ghosts that might be following her.
This wild and fanciful description of Mrs. Winchester’s nightly prowl to the Séance Room appeared in The American Weekly in 1928, six years after her death:
“When Mrs. Winchester set out for her Séance Room, it might well have discouraged the ghost of the Indian or even of a bloodhound, to follow her. After traversing an interminable labyrinth of rooms and hallways, suddenly she would push a button, a panel would fly back and she would step quickly from one apartment into another, and unless the pursuing ghost was watchful and quick, he would lose her. Then she opened a window in that apartment and climbed out, not into the open air, but onto the top of a flight of steps that took her down one story only to meet another flight that brought her right back up to the same level again, all inside the house. This was supposed to be very discomforting to evil spirits who are said to be naturally suspicious of traps.” Read more at http://www.winchestermysteryhouse.com/thehouse.cfm