To the editor:

Tax loopholes for the rich are entitlements.

Social Security and Medicare are earned benefits.

Republicans under the Johnson House Leadership are calling for cuts in Social Security and Medicare by raising the eligibility age and reducing benefits.

The Republicans want to attach the cost of a commission to study these cuts to the 2024 budget. Seventy percent of voters have rejected this idea!

The cost of tax cuts should be factored into Congress’s consideration of the budget deficit.

In 2017, Trump tax cuts slashed the top corporate tax rate from 35% to 21%.

Since then, most profitable corporations paid less than 21% due to loopholes. 342 companies paid just an average of 14% with T-Mobile, Dish, Netflix, GM, AT&T, Bank of America, Citigroup, FedEx, Molson Coors and Nike paid less than 5%. Twenty-three profitable companies paid no federal tax in the last 5 years and one hundred and nine corporations paid no federal tax in at least one of the years.

Republicans want to extend the Trump tax cuts after their scheduled end in 2025. This plan would cost $4 trillion over a decade. Trump wants to cut even more taxes if reelected.

Biden has called for preserving the 2017 tax cuts only for those who make less than $400,000 per year.

Losing the revenue part of the budget equation and focusing only on spending is the Republican way of increasing the income of the rich (Republican donors) and decreasing the income of the rest of us.

Vote for Democrats!

Dennis Raube

Fort Myers