Edward Hum – 7/10/14

This page was last updated on July 10, 2014.

Time to raise federal taxes; Edward J. Hum; Beaver County Times; July 10, 2014.

An editor’s note for a previous letter asserted, “The writer is a 1948 graduate of Geneva College.”

Mr. Hum has written more than 66 letters since mid-2004, including a 10-month hiatus from September 2007 to July 2008 and another from November 2012 to July 2014. Long 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, 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. The last Hum letter I critiqued was entitled “What happened in 2001?” back in November 2012.

Below is a detailed critique of the subject letter.

“Fellow Republicans, from 2000 to 2008 the national debt doubled to over $10 trillion because the president started two wars and paid for them by cutting taxes and borrowing from China. Then, with unemployment rising rapidly, the president had to spend trillions more to bail out Wall Street and the country moving again.”

[RWC] This is pretty much a regurgitation of some previous Hum letters. Some examples are here, here, here, here, and here.

“Today, despite Obama, the economy is growing and the federal budget is in balance. It is time to raise taxes to pay for the Afghanistan-Iraq wars.”

[RWC] From where does Mr. Hum get his news? The economy (GDP) shrank in the first quarter of 2014 by 2.9% and the current annual deficit is about $580 million.

“The extra tax will be 10 percent of whatever income tax is paid. If your income tax is $500, pay another $50. Only the first $1,000 of income tax will be taxed. That way Mitt Romney and the other job creators will pay only $100.”

[RWC] If “the federal budget is in balance,” which also means we’re paying our debt obligations, why increase taxes?

“We will blame it all on Obama.”

[RWC] I would blame it on anyone who voted for or supported increasing tax rates.