Over the past few months, I’ve been reading about the Bush tax cuts expiring and what it’s going to cost to keep them. So, I figured it’s about time for a basic math class.

Taxes are money that is taken from people in order to run the government. That is not money already in people's hands, so if an individual gets paid $100 today and is taxed $20, he takes home $80. No matter how you look at it, the $20 was that individual's money to start with, not the government's. So, any money that is taken is an increase in what was taken previously.

When the president says it will cost $700 billion to give rich people a tax cut, what he really means is that he has already spent $700 billion and feels that class warfare is the way to pay for it.

I am not a rich person, but feel I have never been employed by a poor person or one on welfare. It takes money to create jobs.

One tidbit about government jobs that pay better than average jobs. We should put a stop to it, because we average minions are the ones paying for those jobs — they are paid for by taxing the middle class, not the people on welfare.

That's something to think about when our men and women in the armed services make less than most welfare recipients.

Duane Dumont, Winthrop