Letter to the Editor

The writer encourages others to send similar letters to their papers. ~Bob

Sir: 

The more I listen to the news about the purely political reasons why President Obama and the Senate Democrats are allied against the Republicans in Congress in trying to solve the debt crisis (and it is, indeed, a crisis) we are faced with in America today, the more my blood begins to boil.  Rather than using facts about what raising or lowering federal tax rates have ALWAYS done to revenues, the Democrats are using the same old rhetoric of class warfare rather than using the economic facts about what raising or lowering federal tax rates have done to federal revenues.  Lowering federal taxes has always resulted in increases of revenue to the government.   The exact opposite is true when the government raises taxes.  One would hope that most of the President’s advisors – never having been able to make a payroll, build a business, or even serve in the military – but having come almost exclusively from the elite institutions of higher learning armed with advanced degrees would have recalled that from their Economics 101 class.

Instead, they are looking almost exclusively to the 2012 election cycle and thinking only about what the probabilities are – by using the usual political rhetoric – of re-electing Obama and regaining their majority in the Congress again.  All we hear are “tax the rich;”  “the wealthy fat cats can afford to pay more;”  “the Republicans, as usual, just want to give more tax breaks to the wealthy;” and the like.  As the point has been made time and time again, the problem with our overly-bloated federal budget is not a revenue problem, it is a spending problem.For years, the Democrats have continued to buy votes by devising new “entitlement” programs to shovel more and more money to the electorate. 

Now those excesses have come back to push the U. S. economy to the edge of the precipice, while significantly damaging the previously unquestioned strength and leadership that we in America have always provided in any major international crisis.   Benjamin Franklin is quoted as saying: “When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will then begin the end of any democratic republic.”  We may be at that point now.  If we are to allow this country’s leadership in the world to be denigrated – economically, militarily, along with its democratic freedoms – then we will have lost it all. And we will have only ourselves to blame.  I keep referring back to the comments from too many older Americans:  “Yes.  We need to dramatically cut back on our spending . . . but don’t touch my Medicare.”  Maybe the Democrats have finally succeeded in buying all of us, fair and square.  I would hope that is not the case.

Sincerely,
Paul Rendine