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OPINION
Barack Obama

Should wealthy shoulder more taxes? Your Say

USA TODAY
In a recent column, Michelle Malkin criticized President Obama for calling America's top achievers "lottery winners."

Letter to the editor:

President Obama's reflexive left-wing comment hurts his chances of steering a national conversation on the taxes paid by wealthy Americans ("Michelle Malkin: Entrepreneurs are not 'lottery winners'").

Raising those taxes is a reasonable idea that merits debate, but comments like "at a certain point you've made enough money" sound more like scolding than persuasion and suggest a punitive motive. Add a widespread perception of government as a black hole where dollars disappear without a trace to the suspicion that, for Obama, taxing the rich is an end in itself. The net result is a populist firestorm that never quite sparked the masses.

Michael Smith; Cynthiana, Ky.

Comments from Facebook are edited for clarity and length:

When wealth gets as concentrated, as it has been in recent decades, it is not helpful to our society. It does not matter whether rich people earned the wealth because if this trend continues, it's only a matter of time until things crumble in this country.

By the way, there's plenty of corporate welfare out there, so I don't really want to hear wealthy business owners complaining when it's suggested they contribute more.

— Ted Harmon

Some people make more than they need, but I don't believe taxing only top earners can solve our problems without getting spending under control also.

My issue is that whenever taxing the wealthy more is suggested, elected officials often have other ways to spend the money instead of putting it toward making the existing social programs more sustainable.

Sandy Finkelberg

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