Reagan’s Goals for United States

Why doesn’t Congress have the guts to make the budget cuts that President Reagan has submitted to them? It is his budget and he has said that he will take the heat, so what is their problem? Their only answer is tax, tax, tax, and spend, spend, spend--but not for defense.

As a tax preparer, I get nauseous hearing over and over again how the Reagan tax cut only benefited the wealthy and that the working man got nothing. I just finished doing an income tax return for a married couple with two dependent children. They had a taxable income of $25,252 for 1985 and their tax on this amount is $3,534. They rent an apartment, so they do not itemize deductions.

On this same income, in 1981, this family would have paid $5,252 in federal income tax, a different of $1,728 or $144 per month for all of 1985 that they had clear to spend on things other than our federal bureaucracy. To me, this 33% decrease in federal taxes over the past four years is sizable--and I do not consider that these people are wealthy by any stretch of the imagination.

So the RTD will have to charge another 15 cents a ride and the people on Amtrak will have to pay more and we won’t have any Metro Rail in Los Angeles. All of these things are local problems and can and should be solved locally, not by Washington. Why should someone living in Butte, Mont., or any other area be sending tax dollars to the federal government to solve our problems here in Los Angeles? Why have we in Los Angeles been sending tax dollars to Washington to pay for the subway there?

FRANK LOFTUS

Santa Monica