“Lyndon Johnson said we could have guns and butter at the same time. This administration says we can have guns, butter and no taxes. God help us if we are not smart enough to know that is not true, and we live by it at our peril.” — former Republican senator from Kentucky, Marlowe Cook, in a letter to the Louisville Courier-Journal in 2004 explaining why he would vote for John Kerry rather than George W. Bush. President Eisenhower’s son, Gen. John Eisenhower, also voted for Kerry, stating similar reasons in a letter he wrote.

G. W. Bush at a fundraiser looked at the crowd and said, “This is an impressive crowd, the haves and the have-mores. Some call you the elite, I call you my base.”

Do not kid yourself; Republicans in Congress are pretending they are looking out for you while they are really looking out for their super wealthy base. Trump lied on camera saying he would not benefit from the tax cuts, but he will benefit hugely. In 2005 the abolition of the Alternative Minimum Tax would have saved him $20 million. Taxes on “pass-through” businesses will be reduced by, I believe, 10 percent, which will save him much more, and doing away with the estate tax will save his children a billion dollars or more. It will also benefit most members of Congress, who if they are not wealthy when they are elected, most are by the time they leave. And then they get pensions, which I think would be a good way to save money. Drop taxpayer-funded pensions for those Congress people who are worth more than, say, $25 million. Some people get two, three or more federal or state pensions. How about they only get one? The highest one, but only one taxpayer-funded pension.

The rich keep getting richer while the rest of us stay the same or go backwards, financially. The rich can afford to pay and if they care about the country — if they are either patriots or Christians — they should. They don’t fight in our wars, which is part of the reason President Eisenhower taxed them at such a high rate.

If you believe the Republican Party cares either about you or about budget deficits, dream on. Their priorities are clear. Even Republicans admit 80 percent of the tax cuts go to corporations — who have been doing very well for years. Congress has thrown some seeming tax cuts to regular people to fool the gullible, but those tax cuts will expire and will be more than offset by the services that will be cut to pay for them. Republicans are already salivating over doing away with entitlements — meaning Medicare, Medicaid (which subsidizes nursing home care) and Social Security. Something else the president said he would not cut, but these unconscionable tax cuts combined with ramped-up defense spending and the real possibility of another war will explode the deficit, giving Republicans the excuse they need to raid those accounts.

Lonna Gooden Van Horn

Northwood