Tax cut debate

There’s been a lot of chatter — in and out of Washington — about extending the Bush-era tax cuts. Republicans and a growing number of Democrats want to make the current tax rates permanent, or at least extend cuts for another two years. The president and his party claim they want to make the tax cuts for the “middle class” permanent and raise tax rates on “the wealthiest 2 percent of Americans.”

But President Barack Obama’s claim that he only wants to raise taxes on the “wealthiest” 2 percent is absurd. We don’t tax wealth in this country; we tax income. Many who fall within that top 2 percent don’t pay federal income taxes on much of their income because it comes from capital gains, which are taxed at a flat rate of 15 percent.

Allowing all Bush-era tax cuts to expire would effectively raise the capital-gains rate from 15 to 20 percent, and that would affect everyone, not just the wealthy.

There also is much disagreement over how hard small businesses will be hit if tax rates go up in a few months. But this debate largely misses the point. Raising income tax rates always has a deleterious economic impact, but raising taxes in a recession is especially harmful.

When President Bill Clinton and a Democratic Congress hiked tax rates in 1993, the economy was already well into a recovery and thus better able to absorb the hit. Businesses large and small will suffer from any tax rate increases next year.

Whether the recession is over or not, there can be no doubt our economy is not in good shape right now.

Adam Arrington, Waco

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Bill Hammond, president and CEO of the Texas Association of Business, gave weak and general arguments for extending tax cuts for the wealthy in his Sept. 5 guest column, “Americans can’t trust Dems’ false populism.”

Warren Buffett, Bill Gates and even former President Bill Clinton have said that the extremely rich should pay a higher percentage of taxes. I urge all to go back and read the three articles from that Sunday Focus page [“Bush tax cuts: Keep or kill?”]. Read not with political emotion but with reasonableness as to what is fair to the whole nation.

In Tony Blair’s new book, “A Journey: My Political Life,” he writes that “you as an individual take second place to the interests of the nation as a whole.”

The other columnists on Sept. 5, Paul Krugman and William G. Gale, made reasonable arguments for making decisions that would put the interests of our nation as a whole at the forefront.

Emmy Parrish, Waco

Postal Service errors

I cannot count the times I have had mail returned to me due to an insufficient address, although the proper address was clearly visible. Why is the post office unable to deliver mail when I omit a few words but have a correct address? I get mail delivered to me with names that look nothing like mine.

I have lived at the same address for more than 50 years, yet my mail is continually returned to my church and rendered undeliverable to me. That costs the church multiple postage. Why shouldn’t the postal department be responsible for the added expense since they are the ones making the errors?

Seems fair to me.

Fae Althage, Waco