Socialism doesn’t work

Richard Sutherland’s letter (“Harris cartoon,” Feb. 2) is very instructive.

Responding to the question of who will pay for “free health care for all,” he says “we the taxpayers.” He goes on to sing the typical liberal marching song by harpooning the rich saying that, “We the taxpayers just doled out $1.5 trillion to the ultrawealthy in this country.” Note to Sutherland: Those successful people actually earned that money that the government “doled out”. That’s what so instructive about his letter, really. Sutherland believes that the government owns that $1.5 trillion -- not the individuals who actually earned it. He has the audacity to characterize it as Trump’s “giveaway to the rich.” I’m embarrassed to share a well-known fact, almost always ignored by saber rattling, anti-rich Democrats: Those earning more than $500,000 here in America already measure less than 1 percent of the population yet account for more than 38 percent of income tax collected. Let that sink in for a moment. It should be clear to any reader that Sutherland wants the 56 percent of Americans who pay income tax to provide “free” healthcare to the 44 percent who do not. And he wants to stick it to those who have figured out a way to get rich in America (which, of course, is the American dream). That dream is the reason immigrants have flocked here for centuries.

And his concept of fairness will kill all that.

History shows that is precisely what happens in socialist economies.

Noel Smith Casselberry