Coping With Tax Reform

Fair taxes--what an irony! The article you ran on taxes favoring the rich and penalizing the middle class (“Inequality Haunts America as Taxes Favor the Rich, Penalize the Middle Class,” by Michael Harrington, Opinion, Jan. 24) was very informative.

My family supported the new tax bill thinking we would receive a badly needed tax break. On the contrary, we are now obliged to pay the same amount without all of the previous deductions, however. The upper class, on the other hand, also gets fewer deductions but a large cut in the maximum tax, which creates a decrease in their payments.

The United States claims to be a republic-democracy, treating all citizens equally, yet one class is laid with the burden of paying the government’s bills. I am very disturbed at the idea that the middle class is required to obey the law, while the law is treating us unfairly. I take this stand because I am a part of the working middle class, and probably will be until I die, unless I amazingly inherit a million dollars.

I cannot understand how our country, claiming equality for all its citizens, can impose such an unfair tax burden on the majority of its citizens. Is this what democracy is about?

BEATA A. ARGUELLO

Arcadia