Pubdate: Sun, 13 Oct 2002
Source: Carlsbad Current-Argus (NM)
Copyright: 2002 Carlsbad Current-Argus
Contact: http://www.currentargus.com/Stories/0,1008,161~9306~,00.html
Website: http://www.currentargus.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2549
Author: Ron Egan

DON'T LET EDITOR HEAD DRUG ABUSE TASK FORCE

Editor:

Editor David Giuliani's commentary last Sunday evoked several emotions, 
most of them resulting in an inability to hold the paper still enough to 
read it. Your contention that the only cure for a government that is unable 
to control itself while spending our money is to give it more of our money 
was responsible for the majority of those emotions. Do us a favor, Mr. 
Giuliani, if the government calls and asks you to head up a drug abuse task 
force, just say no! We could not afford all of the heroin you would have us 
buy to give to heroin addicts in order to make them more responsible heroin 
users.

The truth about tax cuts is that they do not cause deficits; they increase 
tax revenues to the government. It's worked every time it has been tried. 
President Kennedy's tax cuts of 1964 caused massive growth in the economy 
and tax revenue that led to a balanced budget in 1969. The Reagan tax cut 
that was passed in late 1981, a 25 percent cut spread over three years from 
1982 to 1984 (Reagan never agreed to a tax hike in his second year in 
office as you stated in your commentary) resulted in an increase in 
receipts from individuals from $286 billion in fiscal 81 - Carter's last 
budget year - to $446 billion in fiscal 89. Overall receipts increased from 
just less than $500 billion to more than $900 billion in the same period. 
These cuts caused growth in tax receipts from 1984 to 1989 to outpace 
growth in spending 50 percent to 34 percent. They were responsible for 18 
years of growth interrupted only by the Bush and Clinton tax hikes of 1989 
and 1993, which caused revenue to grow at a much slower rate than 
government spending.

The Bush tax hike caused a recession, the shallowest recession of the 20th 
century. This was the one Bill Clinton and the mainstream press constantly 
referred to in the 1992 campaign as "the worst economy in the last 50 years."

Now there were very large deficits in the 1980s thanks to a 69 percent 
increase in government spending. You see, we were engaged in the Cold War 
with the Soviet Union and President Reagan's strategy was to force them 
into economic ruin by making it impossible for them to keep up with our 
military buildup. He was successful, of course, and it turned out to be one 
of the best investments the American taxpayer ever made. Today, we are 
fighting the war on terror. The funding of this war is largely causing the 
deficits, not the pitifully small tax cuts passed last year.

Your opinion concerning my money seems to be very similar to the one stated 
by Bill Clinton only days after the Senate (under the leadership of Trent 
Lott, the world's only living spine donor) failed to convict him in his 
impeachment trial. Clinton responded to a question saying: "We could give 
the American people a tax cut, but we couldn't be sure they would do the 
right thing with it." Now I'm not sure I want to know what Bill Clinton 
would say is the right thing to do with it, or how you would define a 
responsible tax cut. I do know that I would rather make those decisions 
myself because after all, it's my money.

Ron Egan

Carlsbad
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