In Scott Estill’s recent opinion piece, he states that income inequality is the nation’s biggest problem.

Why is this the biggest problem? Naturally, the rich are getting richer. If you have more to invest, you get bigger returns, but “the poor” are also benefitting. And don’t ignore upward mobility. Tomorrow’s poor are different from today’s poor. Tomorrow’s rich may be bankrupt. The “pie” is not fixed. It grows.

Doling out money creates a moral hazard. Instead, we should focus on helping the poor to work their way out of poverty. I also take issue with the blanket statement that the rich are getting richer at the expense of everyone else. Of course there is corruption, but not all rich people are corrupt.

Their expansion of wealth may be through hard work and benefit the whole of society through job creation. I do agree with Scott that we must balance the budget. I just don’t know how. As soon as a politician brings it up, the opposing party will demonize him as wanting to starve grandma and little children.

I also agree that taxing the wealthy never works and eventually becomes a burden on the middle class. The wealthy have infinite ways to legally shield their wealth and have great influence over the politicians. Graft and large donations, to influence lawmaking, makes my blood boil because it will eventually destroy democracy.

Lastly, raising interest rates may reduce (hurt) borrowing, but it also helps seniors who live on a fixed income. In my opinion, inflation is our greatest economic enemy especially since it hurts the poor the most. To cure that, we must reduce government spending. Even if we confiscated all the wealth of the rich, we could not make a dent in the national debt.