I just read a tax summary that was published in the Wall Street Journal – not really an anti-GOP paper – that indicated 61 percent of our corporations pay no income tax and 71 percent of large corporations, those with assets of $250 million or more, pay less than 5 percent. Together they paid a combined rate of zero to 4 percent. That is with a so-called corporate 35 percent tax rate? Corporate profits are the highest since 1950.

Couple this with income inequality. Of late, between 2009 and 2011, the top 1 percent captured 121 percent of the nation’s income while the real income of the bottom 90 percent or so decreased. The top 1 percent hold 35 percent of the nation’s wealth.

We are kept in a low information mode so we won’t protest. A major reason is that 90 percent of our media are owned by six companies, as opposed to the 90 percent owned by 50 companies back in 1983. This is called censorship by the monied.

Our representative in Congress is on the side of the plutocrats, and not working for the middle class, old, unemployed and the poor.

Norm Hjelm

Spokane Valley