I have read with interest and have been greatly entertained by recent letters using a restaurant analogy for our collective tax responsibility in this country. Some apparently feel the rich should pay for everything while others still view most people as serfs, labor to make the rich richer; although the serfs shouldn't mind now because they are much better paid than they were in the Middle Ages.
I would like to offer a different view of the restaurant scenario.
While eating a hamburger and fries at my favorite restaurant, I notice the owner of the restaurant serving a porterhouse steak to the rich person seated across the aisle. The owner tells the rich person his steak is "on the house" because his ability to earn money is well respected in the community and because he has great influence around town. I then realize the amount I am paying for my hamburger meal is subsidizing the cost of the rich person's free steak dinner.
To be clear, I am not interested in freeloading off the rich or in taxing them down to my income level. In fact, many middle-class people could be considered quite wealthy in many respects and be adversely affected by punitive taxes supposedly aimed just at the rich. I believe most thinking people just want everyone taxed equally and fairly. Ability to pay is not an unfair concept, and allowing the rich to get a little richer through tax breaks does not seem to be helping with the creation of jobs in this country or reducing the deficit.
Steve Wedel
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Duluth
