For the Very Rich Only, No Matter How You Slice It

I don’t know when I have been more depressed about the status of the nation than upon reading Paul Lieberman’s article “The $1,000 Round of Golf” (Oct. 12). I realize, of course, that we are becoming a two-tier nation consisting of the very rich and everyone else, but no article has brought the fact so resoundingly close to home as Lieberman’s description of a round of golf at Shadow Creek in Las Vegas. I find it astonishing that a Louis XIV-like example of opulence is supportable in that dry desert.

It is further distressing to read that most of Lieberman’s golfing partners during his weekend of play were in town attending tax-deductible business conventions. After the recent revelations on how the Internal Revenue Service hounded small taxpayers and businesses, it is upsetting to realize that the IRS seems to view Steve Wynn’s extravagant golf course as a legitimate depreciable asset for the Mirage Corp. What an incredibly distorted system of wealth and taxation we have in this nation.

Alfred Daniel Eliason

Santa Barbara