Where’s the relief for the rest of us?

Re “Before budget fight, Bush puts up his fists on taxes,”

July 27

The problem with the president’s promise to “keep taxes low” is that they’re not low. They’re low for him. Middle-class people don’t keep their money; their taxes are not low; and meaningful relief from a crushing combination of income and payroll taxes would have produced a moral and economically dynamic result. Instead, the wealthy got the “relief,” the middle class got small checks and wartime America got massive annual revenue losses. But if the goals are the enrichment of Republican donor constituencies, national debt enlargement and creating a scarcity of resources that justifies the Republican passion for working-class program cuts, the Bush tax cuts make out like champs.

Vicki Livingston

Rancho Palos Verdes