I am glad The Times provides a section of the paper for letters to the editors. Recently, Tommy Sandoval wrote a very interesting essay on how President Bush has cut taxes 96 percent for a married couple making only $40,000 a year.

I truly welcome dialogue on the subject of government and taxation. But I wish Mr. Sandoval had provided some sources so everyone could double-check his letter of March 31.

Checking some IRS information on actual taxes paid (available on its Web site), a taxpayer making an average of $34,000 per year paid an average of $2,457 in federal income taxes, not $45 as Mr. Sandoval seems to think.

Checking 2005 IRS information for the group of taxpayers making between $30,000 and $40,000 per year, the Child Tax Credit did not double. It did increase about 20 percent over the year 1999. That means a decrease in federal income tax of about 7 percent, not 96 percent.

Mr. Sandoval and other well-meaning people think the Democrats are ending major tax cuts for the middle class. The Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001 had a sunset clause that automatically terminates the act in 2010. Without the sunset clause, the act would have violated Title XIII of the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act, which has been known as Pay-As-You-Go or PAYGO. Obeying PAYGO could have prevented irresponsible politics and prevented the huge deficit spending under President Bush.

Mr. Sandoval thinks the Democrats want to end the fictional "96 percent" tax cut for a married couple making only $40,000 a year along with the other Bush cuts. In reality, Democrats want to stop borrowing money from China. To stop the borrowing from China and from the oil rich Middle Eastern countries, we need to obey the letter of the law. Laws like PAYGO and specifically, the law that forces the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001 to die as promised on Jan. 1, 2011.

Being responsible isn’t easy. It’s just the right thing to do.