Letters

What’s in there

Everybody’s talkin’ ‘bout it: Mitt Romney’s refusal to release any more of his tax returns. Wondering what might be hidden in there that could make suspicion less damaging than revelation?

Pulitzer prize winning reporter David Cay Johnston exposes many of the most common and outrageous possibilities in his book, “Perfectly legal: The covert campaign to rig our tax system to benefit the super rich—and cheat everybody else”. He’s as fun to read as Louis Grizzard or Bill Hall, with citations to support his case. It’s a book all of us 99 percenters should read, available for 99 cents (used) online through Alibris vendors.

WSU has a couple of copies as well, though they’re not yet available in our Whitman County library system. The Colfax branch does have a copy of his other fabulously funny and enraging “Free Lunch: How the wealthiest Americans enrich themselves at government expense (and stick you with the bill).”

Those of you with your knickers in a twist over the Hawkins project would especially enjoy chapter 9, (Goin’fishin’), a cautionary tale for state and local governments negotiating economic development arrangements with big box developers.

Karen Swoope,

Colfax