Letter: Let's add up winners, losers in tax breaks

Tax breaks, the latest catchword out of Congress. Everybody wants to give Joe Citizen a tax break. What I'd like to see is just how much of a break we're talking about. Surely amongst the thousands of aides and staffers, of both parties, someone could come up with a chart showing just how much their party's break would be.

It would be nice, for a change, to be given the whole story, to be told the truth. But I have a feeling that if these tax breaks were truly substantial for the major portion of taxpayers, the party reps would be shouting the facts from the rooftops.

Of course if Congress had to run the country's finances the way you and I have to run our finances, they would have to pay down the national debt and save the $250 billion a year in interest on the debt.

But paying down the debt isn't glamorous or vote buying and, who knows, maybe they're concerned about who would lose all that interest.

Speaking of truth and Congress (is that an oxymoron?) whatever happened to all those investigations into high gas prices? The Federal Trade Commission made its report to Congress and stated that the need for special blend gas in the Midwest would NOT have been a reason for such high prices. Congress reacted ... they went on vacation.

Now with oil under $30 a barrel and no reports of pipe line breaks or refinery shutdowns, which were all the excuses for our high gas prices, why are prices about $1.85 per gallon on Carson Street? Wonder what the excuse will be this time.

LEN GOSTIN

Carson City