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Letter: The Greatest Generation didn’t knuckle under to the 1%

World War II veterans George Thomas, 97, left, and Clark Wilson, 93, enjoy conversation before a ceremony at Joint Base San Antonio-Fort Sam Houston, Tuesday, Aug. 20, 2019. Veterans from the "Greatest Generation," that weren't able to fly to France for the 75th anniversary of D-Day, were honored. (Jerry Lara/The San Antonio Express-News via AP)

In response to the Public Forum letter from Phil Neelands (“What’s happening to the Democratic Party?” Aug. 18).

Sir, when your father returned from World War II and helped to build “the greatest economy the world has seen,” and I add, built a middle class that was the envy of the world, it didn’t hurt that the highest income tax bracket was 90%.

There were no Walmarts that destroyed small businesses while paying their employees subsistence wages and, at Thanksgiving and Christmas time, asked their patrons to donate food to their workers.

No man could afford to pay tens of billions of dollars, as Jeff Bezos did, to his ex-wife so that he could marry a newer version, while paying zero income tax.

One did not have to mortgage one’s future to get a college education. Every Tom, Dick and Harry couldn’t start a “university” and be allowed to fool young people to borrow high-interest loans for a worthless degree (Trump University?) and raise the country’s student loan burden to a trillion dollars.

And, blissfully, there was no Fox “news” to promote all of the above.

If G.E., Amazon and other corporations paid their fair share of taxes, and if we didn’t subsidies oil and gas industries, perhaps our young people could afford, if not free, but affordable education to improve their lot, and we could rebuild our dilapidated infrastructure.

At the time of “the Greatest Generation,” tax cuts, if any, didn’t go to the richest 1% of the population. Franklin Roosevelt did not file four or five bankruptcies while stiffing his workers.

Behrouz Motiee, Salt Lake City

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