Mike Ramirez, in his March 15 letter (“Simple, unpopular idea”) bemoaned the fact that he has to pay taxes to support other people’s children’s education. He says he is willing to pay his fair share, but he would tax people extra who have children. Unless he plans on filling our labor force with illegal immigrants, someone has to have children to maintain our work force. And as more couples are choosing to have fewer or no children, someone must be willing to have extra children.
The amount of monetary relief a family gets in taxes for having children doesn’t come close to the cost a family has to expend to raise children. And, in spite of what some people think, free public education is not free for the parents of those children.
And what is a fair share? Taxation is not, nor has it ever been, even closely fair and equivalent for all people. For example: the lower 80 percent of our state pay almost twice as much of their income in taxes as do the top 1 percent. All of us benefit from a well-educated populace, so all of us should be willing to help pay for that education, at least through high school.
And if Ramirez’s simple idea were to be adopted, would it be fair to increase the taxes for children who have already been born?
Fred Ash, Sandy