Rob, I agree with you in principle; the Republican leadership has been spending at an alarming rate, in fact, they spent more in Bush's first term than the Clinton administration did in BOTH terms. HOWEVER, I must take issue with you on a couple of points.
The $1 trillion you cite as being spent on the war pales in comparison to the $5.3 trillion we've spent in the "War on Poverty" over the last 40 years. You'd think that after all that time and after all that money spent, we'd have eradicated poverty, but our policies have actually destroyed families and encouraged people to remain in poverty. What's our exit strategy for THAT "war"?
As far as defense spending goes, to me, it's been money well spent. Over the past 20 to 30 years, the US has been under attack by terrorists, and nothing was done. In a perfect world, wars would be unnecessary, but the reality is that national defense is something that government SHOULD be doing IMHO. One report states that terrorism worldwide is actually down since 2003 (the year the US went into Iraq) according to a recent Newsweek article by Fareed Zakiria. I should also point out that we haven't been attacked since September 11, 2001 and that is no accident.
Now, to set the record straight about "trickle-down". It DOES work, it WILL work and it HAS worked every single time it's ever been tried. Taxation is not a zero-sum game, as proven by the Laffer Curve. Historically, tax rate reductions have always resulted in ecomonic growth, job creation and rising incomes. When President Kennedy lowered the top marginal tax rate from 91% to 70%, the economy took off. Under "Reaganomics", we saw 96 consecutive months of the greatest peacetime economic expansion this country has ever seen. In fact, revenues to the Treasury under Reagan increased. Even the Bush tax cuts resulted in an "unexpected" increase in revenue and reduced the projected deficit to it lowest level in five years for FY 2007, according to the Treasury Department. It's also why the economy continues to expand (despite rising food prices, a weak dollar and $4.00 a gallon gasoline.)
The only reason for the deficits during the Reagan years was Congress's out-of-control spending. President Reagan's budgets would have balanced if not for Congress (then under control of the Democrats) which OUTSPENT EVERY REAGAN BUDGET EXCEPT ONE. In fact, House Speaker Tip O'Neill and the Democrat leadership at the time would have "ceremonies" on Capitol Hill to declare Reagan's budgets "dead on arrival".
I agree that neither candidate is a great choice. Seems to me that instead of "Dumb and Dumber", we've got to choose between "Left and Lefter".
Regards,
Scott Perry
to post a reply:
login - or -
register