Paul Krugman’s March 22 column said: “Mr. Trump never learns anything.” (“American political system enduring an epidemic of infallibility”)
How, then, did he employ thousands of people and earn millions of dollars?
ALBERT HAMMER
Sylvania
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No, Italy isn’t a tax haven as suggested
A March 24 readers’ forum writer suggested that President Trump move to Italy to save money on taxes (“Mr. Trump, save money and move”). As a native Italian now living in Ohio, I can tell you that the writer is grossly mistaken.
Italy has some of the highest taxes in Europe.
Income over $75,000 is taxed at 43 percent and there are no caps as the letter implies.
In addition to income tax, Italians pay a 20 percent value added tax, high gasoline taxes (gas is currently about $7 a gallon) and the highways are all toll roads. The central government in Rome has plenty of money, but local governments struggle to provide basic services.
Mr. Trump can move to Italy if he wants to, but he’ll pay more in taxes and he should stay away from Naples during the summer. That city is having major problems with garbage pick-up and it doesn’t smell very good.
CARLO GIBELLATO
Sylvania
More should be worried about U.S.
I really wonder why no one else seems to be worried. We have an electorate that is splintered along economic and sociological lines. We have an administration that is unabashedly pushing economic nationalism. We have a legislature whose primary concern seems to be re-elected. Am I missing something?
Is this not a parallel to the national socialist movement of the 1920’s? How can we expect someone with a business orientation to be democratic? Business is pretty much autocratic by its nature. Democracy demands that the people have a say. And, when what the people say is tainted by representatives who only want to be re-elected rather than to do what is best for the majority, we end up with a system that is not only dysfunctional but dangerous to the people at large.
The only way that we, the people, can lose our democracy is by voting it out of existence. It seems to me we are moving that way.
RON J. BORES
Fostoria
First Published April 2, 2017, 4:00 a.m.
