To the editor:

A few comments in response to the what do you think question at the end of the April 26 Journal Our View: “It is not possible to think we do not pay enough taxes.”

The 16th Amendment authorizing Congress to lay and collect taxes on income was ratified in 1913. It consisted of simple flat tax brackets ranging from 1 percent to 7 percent. Today individual brackets range from 10 percent to 39.6 percent, and are anything but simple.

According to the most recent Congressional Budget Office report on the distribution of federal taxes, Washington collects about $20,000 from the average household.

About 70 percent of those in a recent survey favored tax reform. Some of those must have been “liberals”. I think the ” …many liberal politicians [who] say we don’t pay enough taxes” probably look at last fiscal year when the federal government taxed about $3.5 trillion out of the economy, yet spent about $387 billion more than it took in. That’s liberal politician thinking squared.

Add to that a recent report by WalletHub analyst Jill Gonzalez suggesting Minnesotans shoulder the fourth highest income tax burden in the country.

I say Taxed Enough Already!

Bob Jentges

North Mankato