Middle class shouldn't bear entire burden

The extreme concentration of wealth in this country hurts economic growth and destroys political harmony. Conservatism has tried to keep this inequality in balance in the past. This recession, what caused it and the effects that have followed, should be looked at from all sides, without political side-taking.

When you have decades of middle-class decline and the continued advancement of the top 1 percent, you have the current deadlock. The point being missed is that our fates are all connected and it won't change or get better until Washington balances its budget and banks do what they're supposed to do: give a reasonable home loan.

People should be rewarded for their hard work, but when bailouts are given in the hundreds of millions and the middle class still struggles, we shouldn't liken it to class warfare. Raising taxes on those who have benefited the most from the past 30 years to help reduce the debt is not class warfare. It's an obvious down-to-earth attempt to find some fiscal sanity.

But can we find cuts as well? Absolutely, but it should be everywhere, from the Pentagon to the president.

But it's one thing to bail out the banks because it is in our own interests to do so; it's another to ask the middle class to bear the entire burden. This is a challenge to Republican candidates as well as those on the right and left. Will real reform ever happen or will we always have crony capitalism?

Symon R. Sanborn

Cedar Rapids