Dan Woike states the tax cut plan does not benefit everyone (“President’s tax cut doesn’t benefit everyone,” SN 2/23). He is correct. However, what he advocates, without stating it, is an income redistribution plan.

A tax cut should benefit those who pay taxes. How novel, relief for those who are actually doing the heavy lifting. As it is, the top 1 percent pay about 45 percent of all income taxes, and the top 10 percent close to 75 percent of all income taxes.

Of course a tax cut will benefit those who pay the most. It should. How does he expect it to benefit those who pay little or none now? Also, he fails to note President Bush’s tax plan removes many lower-income people from the income tax rolls completely, and that the so-called “rich” still pay a disproportionately large amount of the taxes.

Also, in spite of the Democrats’ rhetoric, those who get larger amounts back are not going out and buying a new Lexus, but will most likely invest this money either in their own business or another and create jobs. This country was not built on the principle of “From each according to his ability, and to each according to his needs.” Maybe Woike needs to take American history and learn the principles of the law of the founding of our country.

Oh yes, I am a physician, and I do make a good income. However, because I put in 12-hour days most of the time, I do consider myself a “worker,” and feel my work should not be punished because it is more highly compensated than another whose education, training and risk are nowhere near as great.

Perhaps Woike would prefer a surgeon who was operating on you making minimum wage after all those years of training, or an airline pilot making the same as the cleaner of the plane. That basically is what he unconsciously advocated.

David A. Krause, M.D.
assistant clinical
professor of radiology