Keith Burgess-Jackson, J.D., Ph.D.

To the Editor:

David Leonhardt’s March 24 front-page
Economic Scene column, “In
the Process, Pushing Back at Inequality,” suggests that there was
no legislation “worth its own section in the history books” since
Medicare’s creation in 1965.

Really? That forgets the Reagan tax
cuts that reignited the economy and led to nearly 20 million new jobs;
the 1996 welfare reforms producing historic declines in dependence and
poverty; the 1997 Balanced Budget Act, creating the successful S-Chip
program while yielding the first balanced budgets in a generation; and
the 2003 Medicare Modernization Act, which added a valuable
prescription-drug benefit for the elderly at far below the projected
costs.

Maybe your history book doesn’t include chapters on those
successful reforms, but it should.

Dave Camp
Washington, March 24, 2010
The writer, a
Republican of Michigan, is ranking member of the House Ways and Means
Committee.

Note from KBJ: Progressives read their own values into the history books. If something is not in accordance with those values, it didn't happen.