Edward Hum – 7/14/11

This page was last updated on July 14, 2011.

Ike set the standard; Edward J. Hum; Beaver County Times; July 14, 2011.

Mr. Hum has written more than 61 letters since mid-2004, including a 10-month hiatus from September 2007 to July 2008. Nearly two-and-a-half years after George W. Bush left office, most of Mr. Hum’s letters still are no more than exercises in bashing President Bush and/or other Republicans. Mr. Hum’s letters are also flame-throwing exercises. I don’t know if Mr. Hum actually believes what he writes, or if he simply likes to stir things up to call attention to himself.

Mr. Hum frequently includes “fellow Republicans” or something similar in his letters and is one of a group of local Republican impersonators (The group also includes Messrs. William A. Alexander, Arthur Brown, William G. Horter, George Reese, and Oren M. Spiegler) who write claiming to be disgruntled Republicans. You have to give Mr. Hum “credit,” however, for going the extra mile to further his impersonation. As of September 2006, Mr. Hum was actually registered as a Republican despite the fact he’s no more a Republican than is Dennis Kucinich.

Given his body of work, for a while I wondered what Mr. Hum would use for subject matter now that Barack Obama is President. Mr. Hum wrote three letters in support of a government-run, taxpayer-funded healthcare monopoly (here, here, and here), then he reverted to his Bush-bashing habit, as in “Bush earns status as ‘most liberal.’” I guess some addictions are too tough to overcome. Mr. Hum’s last letter was entitled “Vacation criticism was undeserved.”

Below is a detailed critique of the subject letter.

“In 1979, the national debt was less than $1 trillion.

“In 1989, after Ronald Reagan raised the debt ceiling multiple times, it had doubled to more than $2 trillion.

“In 1999, there was a budget surplus.”

[RWC] As a reminder, Republicans were the majority in both houses of Congress and pushed then-President Clinton to sign the Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997. The debt at the end of fiscal year 1999 was $5.6 trillion, about $1.3 trillion higher than when Mr. Clinton took office.

“In 2009, after George W. Bush raised the debt ceiling four or five times -- to $10 trillion -- to pay for two wars, the Medicare prescription drug program, tax cuts for the rich and a Wall Street bailout, the economy sank.”

[RWC] Presidents can’t raise the debt ceiling on their own; doing so also requires approval of Congress. Mr. Hum apparently wants us to forget Democrats were the majority in both the House and Senate for the final two years of the Bush administration. Had Democrats really disagreed with Mr. Bush’s budgets, Democrats could have filibustered those budgets when the minority in the Senate and outright vote them down in 2007 and 2008 when Democrats were the majority in both houses.

You have to give Mr. Hum credit for chutzpah. As I noted above, Mr. Hum wrote three letters in support of a government-run, taxpayer-funded healthcare monopoly, yet bashes Mr. Bush for “the Medicare prescription drug program.” I opposed Medicare Part D and still do. That said, this program actually came in below estimates by 28% to 40%.

As for “tax cuts for the rich,” Mr. Hum apparently didn’t get the memo. On December 6, 2010, Mr. Obama finally had to concede, “Make no mistake: Allowing taxes to go up on all Americans would have raised taxes by $3,000 for a typical American family. And that could cost our economy well over a million jobs.” Quoting the Tax Foundation, “Despite the charges of critics that the tax [rate] cuts enacted in 2001, 2003 and 2004 favored the ‘rich,’ these cuts actually reduced the tax burden of low- and middle-income taxpayers and shifted the tax burden onto wealthier taxpayers.” The TF further stated, “7.8 million low and middle-income families had their entire income tax liabilities erased by the cuts.”

Eventually we had record tax revenue (from the tax RATE cuts) and “discretionary” spending increased at a slower rate than during the Clinton administration. Before the current economic mess began to kick in, tax revenue peaked at $2.6 trillion in 2007, an increase of $577 billion (29%) since 2001. By the end of fiscal year 2007 (the last before the recession), the deficit was down to $161 billion. Once again, tax revenue wasn’t the problem, spending was.

As for increasing the debt ceiling, presidents can’t do “Wall Street bailout[s]” without the approval of Congress. The Democrat-majority Congress – including Sen. Obama – supported the bailout. Mr. Hum appears to forget bailouts enacted after Mr. Obama took office.

As for what caused the economy to sink, please read this critique.

“Considering the mess he inherited, I think President Barack Obama has done as well as he could against the party of not just ‘no,’ but ‘hell no!’”

[RWC] As for “the mess he inherited” comment, Mr. Hum apparently wants us to believe Mr. Obama dropped out of the sky to become President and had nothing to do with where we are. Mr. Obama was a U.S. Senator for four years before he became President, including two years when Democrats were the majority in both houses of Congress. How many times did Mr. Obama – or any other Democrat - filibuster spending? How many times did Mr. Obama warn us about the subprime mortgage mess? How many of those evil Republican spending policies/programs did President Obama and the Democrat-majority Congress repeal during the two years they had complete control?

You’ll note Mr. Hum didn’t provide any examples of what “President Barack Obama has done … well.”

As for “the party of not just ‘no,’ but ‘hell no!,’” I guess Mr. Hum expects us to forget Mr. Obama had the “benefit” of a Democrat-majority Congress for the first two years of his administration, including a period during which Democrats had a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate. Mr. Hum doesn’t seem to see this argument hurts his attempts to absolve Democrats of complicity in our mess. If Republicans with significant minorities in Congress could derail Mr. Obama, doesn’t that mean Democrats could have done the same during the Bush administration?

“Would that we Republicans could bring back Republican President Dwight Eisenhower, who said, when the top tax rate was around 90 percent, that the nation could not afford to cut taxes because we had to pay our debts and build an interstate highway system.”

[RWC] This paragraph is a regurgitation of Mr. Hum’s letter entitled “Where’s fiscally correct GOP?” of March 21, 2011.

If increasing taxes is such a good idea, why didn’t Mr. Obama and his Democrat-majority Congress do so when they had the chance for two full years?