To the editor:

“That’s so true,” replied the employee restocking shelves when I reached for an item that had yet another price increase and said, “The billionaires are robbing us blind.”

President (Ronald) Reagan’s campaigning scheme that giving tax breaks to the rich will trickle down to provide prosperity to everyday citizens got him elected, but the notion has been proven false. Instead, it has been a boon for the wealthiest ever since his 1976 election.

Common Good Iowa reports in 2023 that Iowa’s rich are getting richer and our poor are getting poorer. One in seven full-time working Iowans’ annual household income falls below Iowa’s bare bones budget.

A December 2024 report from the Economic Policy Institute states that since 1974, CEOs’ pay in the largest U.S. corporations has grown 1,084% compared to their typical workers’ pay increase of 24%.

The Rand Report estimates that $79 trillion in wealth in the U.S. had been transferred from the bottom 90% of earners to the top 1% since 1975 when antitrust enforcement efforts were at their highest. Rand calculates that if pre-1975 average wage trends had kept pace, the average worker would have earned an additional $32,000.

I could do a lot with that kind of money.

Iowa’s GOP enacted a flat tax rate in 2023 to replace the progressive tax rate that was put in place in 1934. High-income earners’ income tax rate shifted down from 5% to 3%. Ironic, since Iowa will need to use its rainy-day fund this year to balance the budget due to shortfalls in incoming tax funds. (President Donald) Trump’s proposed tax cuts for the rich at the federal level, added to the current dismantling of administrative government, will squeeze everyday Americans further.

U.S. Sen. (Cory) Booker reminded us in his filibuster protesting the corporate takeover of our democracy that the writers of the Declaration of Independence end with a plea for every American to “mutually pledge, pledge to each other ‘our lives, our fortunes, and our Sacred Honor,'” for their new government.

Our country’s founders fought their monarch due to an unfair tax system. Now we must wrest control away from the influence of billionaires to save our democracy. Call your elected representatives to advocate for the ultrarich paying their fair share.

Kathy Getting

Webster City