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Letters: The debate over entitlements

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Re “How we earned Romney’s scorn,” Opinion, Sept. 19

Judy Dugan’s Op-Ed article is revealing. She writes as if any benefit a citizen gets from the government is an entitlement. She argues that when Congress lowered the capital gains rate to 15%, the bonus investors received was an “entitlement just as much as food stamps.” Does everything belong to the government? And is what the government lets you keep an “entitlement”?

This is very different from our founding principles. The Declaration of Independence assumes that individuals preexist government and that government exists with the consent of the governed. Government doesn’t own anything or have any rights; individuals have rights that they may delegate to government.

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Recall, the original tea party objected to an unjust tax. It’s safe to say that none of those protesters would have agreed that the revenue Britain allowed them to keep was an entitlement.

Fred Evans

Porter Ranch

Dugan’s article is brilliant. She writes that wealthy people living off their capital gains taxed at only 15% are actually receiving an entitlement themselves.

Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan want to cut certain social programs while decreasing taxes on capital gains. Isn’t that shifting the entitlements from the people who need the help (and, in many cases, have paid for it) to the wealthy?

I wish everyone would read Dugan’s piece and understand what’s at stake in this election.

Biff Yeager

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Frazier Park

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