Letters to the Editor: Tax return would tell a lot about Trump

Last week’s editorial page had columns by Steve Hansen and Rube Render defending our “so called” president.

Regarding Hansen’s column “President’s tax return not the real issue:” The real issue is one party ignoring science, but his tax return would yield a lot of information about the person who is head of the world’s most powerful nation.

The president’s duty is to govern to the benefit of the whole nation. Taxes are to enable a nation to carry out its mission to all citizens in situations that are not suitable for individuals or companies to address. The duty of citizens is to pay taxes to enable the government to perform that function.

An example of items government is better equipped (my apologies to conservatives) than private concerns to perform are fire departments, at one time privatized, infrastructure, scientific research, justice system, air traffic control and numerous others.

Oh, I almost forgot health care.

The most outstanding reason for the intractability of our tax code system is all of the exceptions, for special parties that have been instituted since its 1980s rewrite. One of the largest being real estate, in which Trump was a participant. He benefited hugely from these perks.

Hansen basically said Trump’s job as executive was to pay as little taxes as possible. When that involves getting special favors added to the tax code to favor your interest only and is against the national interest, personally I would consider that enough by itself to disqualify that person for a position of national responsibility.

Rube Render, in his column “Limitation equals misinformation,” alludes to possible conspiracy between Obama, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and Hillary. Republicans have been trying to pin something on Hillary for years, with no result. She is either innocent, or they are totally incompetent.

Leon Logan

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