Palm Beach Post, Letters to the Editor: The economy favors the very rich
Who can say for sure if all of the interest-rate hikes by the Federal Reserve this past year have really helped? Americans really don’t feel good about the economy due to all of the higher prices we are paying for food, healthcare, housing and other things. They say higher prices are due to “inflation.” In reality, this is “gouge-flation.”
America’s largest healthcare companies raked in more than $41 billion of profits in 2022. Housing has gone up 10% to 13%, depending what source you look up, and researchers estimate if the top 1% of Americans paid their full amount of taxes, it would raise $175 billion a year. Instead they bilk us.
In the end, our Congress has no problem funding $886 billion in the defense budget. However, when it comes to healthcare, paid family leave or universal pre-K, there are no funds for us, even though we pay the taxes for most everything else. So, we have to be very discriminating with our purchase power. That’s about all we’ve got in this economy, which works well for the top 1%.
Linda Kramer, Palm Beach Gardens
