Letter: Expose inequality

Those who would ask citizens to stop picking on the nation’s wealthy need to look at facts:

One percent of the population owns 40 percent of the nation’s wealth. In 1976, they only had 20 percent. In 2008 they paid 38 percent of federal income tax, hardly disproportionate. U.S. is now ranked 42nd in earning inequality and is the worst in the industrial world. (Google: U.S. wealth distribution).

A survey shows that most people are unaware of the income and wealth inequality in U.S. (Google: William Alder wealth distribution.)

Working-class Americans pay a higher percentage of their earnings toward taxes than wealthy people. Capital gains are taxed 15 percent and account for much of wealthy people’s income. This is a lower rate than taxes on wages earned by most workers.

Our system of legal bribery of Congress, known as lobbying and unlimited campaign contributions, contributes to tax inequity. In 2010, Bank of America, Boeing, Exxon, GE, and Merck were among thousands of corporations that avoided taxes altogether.

A system where the rich get richer and everyone else loses cannot be sustained in a nation where fairness and justice are valued.

Claiming that class envy is the culprit is a red herring.

Judy Bumbarger-Enright

Vancouver