Some reactions to the Sunday column on the "rich middle class":

Sun columnist Jay Hancock ("O'Malley tax starts with rich in middle," Sunday, September 30, 2007, C1) concludes that this is the label we ought to affix to a married couple earning a combined $225,000. But according to Census 2000 data, only 7,869 families in all of Baltimore County -- 3.9 percent! -- enjoy family incomes of even $200,000 or more. In Howard County, the figure is still just 6.0 percent -- about 4,000 families in the whole county.

It might not be quite right to call them "rich," either, as your headline writer did. These are still families for whom a single pink slip might result in a home foreclosure or a tuition crisis, and with downsizing, age discrimination and everything else, they're as susceptible to such calamities as anyone. But neither is any group in percentiles 97, 98, 99 and 100 in a "middle," no matter how you qualify it. Painting them simply as "rich" is tired class warfare, but permitting such earners to carry the "middle class" connotation is unfair -- the product of serious and irresponsible inaccuracy.

Jay, You overlooked MOM's proposed (read actual) corporate tax increase of nearly 15%, which of course, will be passed along to the consumer. Another regressive tax!

Jay, there is far too much fat in government, at every level, and we need to have a serious reduction in government costs, and spending, before any tax increases are approved! Government never reduces a tax, even those that they sell as "temporary", why is that? Tax increases in today's economy are almost indefensible! The increase in energy and health care costs are enough to insulate us from further tax increases; when will it stop? It will stop when "they" finally break the back of the true middle class, because it is the middle class that carries the cost of this Nations' over-inflated government, on its backs!

Dear Jay,

I truly enjoyed your article about the wealth tax. I think it is about time someone has shine some light on this subject. We moved here from Texas and we have been here three years. I am a stay at home Mom, and my husband is a six figure income bread winner. In Texas we were upper middle class with a first class lifestyle. We have often felt like we got down graded once we moved here. We do not see a class structure, and we are starting to feel like we are all equal. Why should a plumber with no formal education be equal to an engineer who works full time while earning a third degree? I think this tax is a tool to work toward making us all equal. The truth about the matter is we are not all equal. We speak different dialects of English, and we have different priorities. Our differences between us and our neighbors is like night and day. In conclusion I think Maryland works at eliminating the Upper Middle Class, but who knows maybe the Upper Middle Class will eliminate Maryland because opportunity is everywhere.