Your Dec. 17 front page article from The Washington Post, “New tax plan may tap poor,” reveals that the Bush administration is sending a message just the opposite from that which churches are reading in their scripture lessons this Christmas Sunday, that in the words of the Magnificat, “God brings down the mighty and lifts up the lowly, fills the hungry with good things, and sends the rich away with empty hands.”

When the incomes of the rich are rising upward at the speed of a Mercedes, the incomes of the middle class are stagnant just barely getting by like a Ford Focus, and incomes of the poor are forcing them to keep repairing old clunkers, of course, the rich have to be taxed more. If we paid taxes as a result of a more egalitarian income economy, then we could have each of us paying a more equal share of the taxes.

In most indigenous cultures, the mark of the wealthy is the great pleasure he or she has in sharing and dispensing with their wealth. If the rich pay huge sums in taxes, then let them do it with thankfulness, that God has blessed them, so that they can, for our true wealth is our commonwealth.

Rev. Roger S. Burkhart

Deer Isle