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Crying foul when
justice is applied
Re: “The fraud behind accusing Trump of fraud” (Page A6, March 28).
If a valid New York law states that in the event of civil fraud, the perpetrator must pay penalties to the state, applying that law is not illegal or immoral.
If you or I lied on a loan application to get a lower rate, we would have committed fraud against the bank and a moral wrong against everyone who didn’t, whether or not we repaid the loan and the bank still made money on us. The judge made the ruling in the New York case because Trump knowingly failed to request a jury.
Applying the law the same way to everyone, rich or poor, is not a violation of an old norm. It is the timeless mark of a just society, where the same standards apply to wealthy liars as to everyone else.
Jay Chafetz
Walnut Creek
MAGA supporters have
forgotten GOP principles
The time has come to refrain from referring to Donald Trump and those who support him as “Republicans” or “the GOP.” Those terms belong to what the party used to stand for, but since the near-total capitulation of the party to Trump and his complete control over every aspect of the party, all it stands for now is fealty to Trump, which is both appalling and disgusting at the same time.
I recommend just calling it the POT (Party of Trump) or MAGA Party but it is definitely not the Republican Party. And ironically, the POT/MAGA Party are the true RINOS, although Trump has hijacked that term and applies it to people who maintain or try to maintain the values of the traditional Republican Party, all in a lost cause.
Jack Kline
Brentwood
Examining full picture,
rich are undertaxed
Re: “Yes, wealthy are taxed enough” (Page A13, March 24).
Do the rich pay their fair share of taxes? E. J. Antoni thinks so in his op-ed.
Antoni only looks at federal income taxes and ignores payroll and sales taxes that poorer people disproportionately pay.
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He doesn’t consider how the super-rich bypass taxes and retain control by getting low-interest rate loans using stock as collateral instead of creating income and taxes by selling shares. This is how Jeff Bezos, the world’s richest person, has billions to spend even though his Amazon salary is only $80,000.
Antoni justifies tax breaks to the rich saying they provide disproportionate economic growth. The reality is that middle-class pension funds, like CalPERS with $600 billion, and millions of IRAs provide far more capital and are the engines that drive our economic growth.
So no, considering everything, the rich do not pay their fair share. They should pay more.
David Kurrent
Pinole