“If everybody is thinking alike, somebody isn’t thinking.” Gen. George Patton. The letter writer who used this quote is a perfect example of somebody who “isn’t thinking.” This is a baseless argument since the writer has no idea what individual members of the Republican Party think; therefore, no “group think.”

If the letter writer is trying to discuss the need to close tax loopholes, I doubt that many Americans would object as long as they are real loopholes; however, are you aware that the deduction you take for your mortgage interest is a “tax loophole” or the credit you take for each child living in the home another “tax loophole?” Did you mean those loopholes? Or, maybe you meant ones like the one given to GE who is required to pay zero tax, but who donated over $530,000 to Obama’s campaign, layed off 18,000 employees and received over $24.9 million (those would be tax dollars) in stimulus funds and then sent their production to China?

If the letter writer meant to tax the wealthy, are you aware that the federal government actually received less revenue when tax rates on the “wealthy” were over 70 percent. Also, what is “wealthy?” Is it a small family-run business (as mine was) which may gross nearly a million a year after three years of running a deficit and employing three part-time college students as the business grew and supplying a very modest income to its owners?

Frankly, what you are suggesting is that someone should only work to survive and nothing more. There should be no incentive to be successful. Is that what you teach your kids? What happened to the America where hard work and productivity was rewarded?

Catherine Paxton

Arlington