The top 1 percent pay 38 percent of the federal income tax while the bottom 50 percent pay only 2.8 percent. Is this fair? Or is it an inconvenient truth as asserted by Don Roberts (column, “Taxes, class envy and gender politics,” June 18)?

The wealthy have always paid a high percentage of the income taxes. They have had the incomes. Currently, the marginal tax rates on incomes are taxed at a top rate at 39 percent, one of lowest in history, The inconvenient truth is that the primary reason the wealthy pay such a high percentage of our taxes is because their incomes have become so much higher than everyone else’s.

Economists say the recent concentration of incomes and wealth to a smaller and smaller part of the population is unprecedented in American history — even greater than during the Great Depression. Now, conservative columnist F.J. Rocca, often quoted in Roberts’ column, has argued that this is natural and there is always success to be had for anyone who has “vision and willingness to work hard.”

Accepting his arguments would allow us to sit back and not worry about concentration of wealth since it is a natural phenomenon that need not be addressed.

Unlike Rocca, I believe American history provides many examples of leaders in business, government and labor who have found it necessary and then successfully established policies that have kept the American dream alive for all and helped realize the “decent and just society” that Roberts and we all wish for.

Certainly the risk takers need to be rewarded for their efforts to create jobs and drive the economy. The question is whether the reward needs to be so much higher while middle-class families must struggle not only to pay taxes but just to make ends meet.

Charles Wright

Mount Vernon

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