To the Editor:
Re “One Nation, Two Deficits” (column, Sept. 7), in which Peter Orszag calls for extending the Bush tax cuts for two years and then ending them:
I believe that we should let the tax cuts expire, without any
extensions. The fiscal experiment, which the tax reductions of the last
10 years represent, has been an unmitigated failure. It has left the
nation deeply in debt, and with no reserves for dealing with the
unexpected (like a war in Asia).
The wealthy minority that benefited most from the rate reductions did
not need the money and did not invest much of it in anything productive.
The wealthy gambled with it, investing in Ponzi schemes and speculating
in housing, to the detriment of the rest of the public.
Moreover, the idea that paying taxes is like throwing money into a black
hole is wrong. If I take home a $100 paycheck and pay $10 for food, $25
for rent and $20 in taxes, that $20 is not lost. I am buying government
services. I am paying for Grandma’s doctor visit, the salary of the
bailiff at the courthouse and other tangible goods.
Economists may say that the multiplier effect of a dollar spent by me in
my community is slightly higher than that of a dollar spent by the
government, but let’s not pretend that I am getting nothing for the
money.
Extending a failed fiscal experiment for a couple more years in the hope
that something good may still come of it, despite a decade of evidence
to the contrary, is nonsense.
Thomas J. Menacher
Maumee, Ohio, Sept. 7, 2010
Note from KBJ: God forbid the wealthy should gamble with their own money. The letter writer thinks that letting people keep their money is giving them money. This is Orwellian; but that's what progressivism has become.
Keith Burgess-Jackson, J.D., Ph.D. 