Millionaires and billionaires should stop whining about income taxes. The gap between rich and poor in this country is at the highest point ever, and so are the numbers of jobless, homeless and hungry people.

According to the Tax Policy Center, the highest U.S. marginal income tax rates were 90 percent in the ’50s and ’60s, and 50 percent in the mid-80s. Now, Republican leaders are calling President Barack Obama’s plan to return to the 39.6 percent top tax rate under former President Bill Clinton “class warfare.”

Nonsense.

Why does anyone believe Republicans when they say that tax cuts for the rich create jobs? New York Times’ David Leonhardt comments on the Bush tax cuts: “Those tax cuts passed in 2001 amid big promises about what they would do for the economy. What followed? The decade with the slowest average annual growth since World War II.”

Those same tax cuts are in effect right now, but where are the jobs they’ve supposedly created?

Preserving the Bush tax cuts for the super rich is a very bad idea. Those fortunate Americans should care enough about their country to help out in this crisis by paying a little more in taxes.

The time for tax cuts for the very richest is the time when more Americans have decent jobs, homes, Social Security and health care, not now.

Keeping taxes low for the rich while cutting Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid would send a truly depressing message about the decline of American values.

Ellen Field, New Gloucester