Letter: America needs reasonable reforms to taxation and political finance systems

In the Jan. 24 Herald, national columnist Jay Ambrose described the dangers of wealth redistribution and equality of monetary outcomes.

Every economic transaction is a redistribution of wealth, and most of these redistributions favor the economically powerful. When a large corporation takes over a town’s hospital and cuts the benefits of workers, that is a redistribution of wealth — does it incur Mr. Ambrose’s outrage?

He does not need to fear equality of monetary outcomes — even a strident liberal like me agrees with him that inequality is a necessary feature of our economy to encourage and reward innovation and hard work that benefits society. But when unconstrained, wealth inequality can go to extremes that damage the fabric of society.

An article in the New York Times detailed how the extremely wealthy can shape tax policy: they use legislation not for the benefit of the country, but to further enrich themselves. They are able to do this because of their economic power, using political influence generated by their extreme wealth.

I argue that this is unhealthy for our country. Reasonable reforms to our taxation and political finance systems would be a good start to restoring balance.

This story was originally published February 7, 2016 at 5:41 PM with the headline "Letter: America needs reasonable reforms to taxation and political finance systems."