America must have a middle class to survive

We need the 1 percent and the big corporations, they are essential to our economy a mom-and-pop business will not build the next 747 or the next generation computer and these entrepreneurs that build these companies deserve to be very wealthy but we also need a middle class to have the resources to buy their products.

We know we need to lower the deficit and that cannot just be cutting programs for the bottom as they do not have enough disposable income as it is, to buy the products needed to keep America’s industries running. We need to cut spend on many fronts including our military/defense that we now spend $2 million per minute on and causes in many respects so much blowback it is anti-productive. Higher incomes and corporations probably need to pay 5 percent more in taxes? We need to cut loopholes, stock options, subsidies, Cayman Island tax avoidance schemes and so on. Sending jobs to China and claiming it is not for cheaper wages will I think cause historians to say: “What were they thinking?”

We now seem to be saying: teachers, firemen, policemen are the new welfare queens and they are dispensable. The value of a person in America seems to be based on wealth, while Big banks, Wall Street and the FED are continuing to rob us blind due to a lack of proper regulation like Glass-Steagall and have disproportionate sway over our elections.

R.I.P. America. “Died for greed and a quest for empire and more profits.”

DENNIS SHELLHORN

Sandpoint