Give tax cut to middle class, not corporations and absentees

To the Editor:

Should PPL Montana get $2.3 million in tax relief while you get $50 or less?

Should a Californian with more money than most of us will ever see in a lifetime get $17,000 tax refund for a home he owns on Flathead Lake and lives in a few weeks out of the year?

Should the richest Montanans get huge tax refunds after having gotten $30,000 on average in the Republican tax cuts over the past few years while you got $23 if you were lucky?

That is the question that faces the legislators in deciding which of competing tax rebate bills to support. The governor's plan would give each of us Montanans $400 which most of us will spend right here in Montana. The Republican plan would give wealthy out-of-staters and corporations more rebates to swell the amount of money they have already been granted.

As a lure to spur support of their plan, the Republicans plan to make the tax cuts permanent which means they have learned nothing from the last time they were in power when they cut taxes on the wealthy in an attempt to starve government. These cuts led to deficits and cut funding for education and other important programs. The amount of money necessary to replace these losses was much greater after several years of starvation than would have been necessary had programs been granted modest increases all along.

We need to let our legislators know that it is past time that the middle class get a tax cut and that money for important programs not be squandered on large our of state corporations and absentee homeowners. They need to support the governor's tax rebate plan.

Eileen Carney