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Tax plan is just wealth redistribution
Letter to editor
lettereditor

Editor, This letter is in response to the editorial in your Sunday, Oct. 25, paper by Wesley Tharpe titled “Bolstering Ga. families through targeted tax reform.” His Georgia Budget and Policy Institute has released a report that calls for a “targeted tax cut to working Georgia families.” He elaborates on the plan: “A single Georgia mother with one child and working full-time at the minimum wage gets a tax cut of about $500 under the proposed reforms. A married family of three making about $38,000 a year receives an estimated tax cut of nearly $700.”  

His tax plan is certainly no reform. It is more of the same idea of cutting taxes for low-income earners and replacing it from higher-wage earners making more than $200,000. Simply, he advocates more income redistribution. He speaks of helping “more Georgians reach the middle class and stay there.” He seems to forget that the couple making $200,000 a year are part of the middle class. Taking more money from people in the middle class certainly doesn’t assist anyone in reaching the middle class. It threatens their position in the middle class. Also, cutting taxes for low-income earners, while perhaps providing more money to spend, has never and will never help them reach the middle class.       

Though no system is perfect, a system that allows any person with the desire, drive and intellect to utilize his or her skills to improve their economic position is the desired system. The popular show “Undercover Boss” was a great example of how such a system works and is an illustration that our system already works to accomplish exactly what Mr. Tharpe wants to see accomplished through his planned “tax reform.” Plans that rely upon redistribution of wealth have been demonstrated to hinder this, and the planned reform measures advocated by the Georgia Budget and Policy Institute will do no better.    

Peter Winn Martin, D.V.M.

Hinesville

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