New Hampshire echo about Robin Hood in reverse

Portsmouth Herald is hardly a place where liberals espouse Democratic politics.  Therefore, this following critical letter to the editor is an especially interesting point of view and the reason I blog it in my "echo" series.  

Money is what influenced Republicans to pass a tax cuts for the rich, a reform that will take money from the middle class so the rich can be wealthier.

Letters like this one are blogged, as I find them, while randomly cruising the nation's newspaper opinion pages.

The Republican tax bill is a black mark in the history of the United States. We are supposed to be a democracy, but the Congress is ignoring the will of the people and voting according to where their money comes from.

The bill will eliminate the estate tax entirely. The Republicans have the nerve to say that an inheritance tax is "unfair". Even after the tax on Sam Walton's estate, three of his children have $38 billion each. Without having had to work for even a day in their lives, each of them can invest their money conservatively and still enjoy incomes greater than 4,000 middle class Americans who have to work hard to support themselves. What is unfair is for families to support generation after generation living in high fashion without having to work for it.

The tax bill perpetrates the "carried interest' provision, under which billionaire heads of hedge funds, that contribute nothing to the economy, pay a maximum rate of about half of what others with similar incomes pay.

Affordable health care depends on all of us contributing to its cost. The new tax bill eliminates the mandate to carry health insurance. Many of the young and healthy, who don't expect to need it, will stop paying their share, so that the cost to others will rise. Millions who can't afford it will be left out completely. Those without health insurance will go to emergency rooms, which are expensive and will have to be paid for by others.

For me, the tax bill will provide a windfall. For my son, who struggles to make ends meet, the tax bill will make it even tougher for him and his family. It takes from him and gives to me. It's immoral.

Economists agree that what works best is to us deficit spending to stimulate the economy in recession, and then to run a surplus in better times to reduce the debt. Now, when we have full employment, is the very worst time to increase the deficit. 

Some call the tax bill a 'give away". A better term would be a "take away", by which the rich, using their money to buy the Congress, take money away from those whose work creates their wealth and give it to the rich.

Milt Lauenstein, Exeter New Hampshie