TAXES: Small shouldn't fall

As we recently had our income taxes done, we overheard a young woman seated at the next desk. She'd started a business this past year, created her own job, and earned about $5,800. Taxes due on her income were nearly $400, and she lacked the funds to write the check.

I see this as a concise statement of our national economic paralysis. While huge corporations pay zero taxes, while presidents and members of Congress pay little or no taxes, while wealthy double-dipping retirees continue to take large social security payments, while Wall Street turns bailout money into bonuses, while the rich continue to take advantage of tax loopholes, this young woman must pay $400 of her gross $5,800 annual income.

The big have taken too much, and the little understandably has not enough left to pay our country's bills. The wealthy in this country own our government, and our government continues to conspire with big to leave the little responsible for the bills. I am among the little, and I wonder if the big read newspapers. Do they not see what's going on around the world? Do they not see what happens when little can no longer bear the weight of big's greed?

Does the government of our county see this as simply the acceptable price of the few big living well can cost to the many little? It would appear so. That's the nature of our present economic paralysis. Where it is taking us is all too obvious.

DAVE HENDERSON

Spirit Lake