This page was last updated on July 29, 2010.
Let Bush’s tax cuts for wealthy expire; Jerry Miskulin; Beaver County Times; July 29, 2010.
I encourage you to review Mr. Miskulin’s body of work in the archives. Mr. Miskulin has written at least 60 letters since 2004 (I didn’t critique all of them.). Most (all?) are illogical and full of falsehoods (not just wrong).
In recent letters, Mr. Miskulin expressed displeasure with the tea parties (here and here), proclaimed
Below is a detailed critique of the subject letter.
“Since 1980, the one evil constant on the American scene has been the cutting of taxes.”
[RWC] This letter differs little from Mr. Miskulin’s letter earlier this year entitled “Reaganomics has failed the country.”
“This, along with the steady stream of revenue lost to overseas concerns, has proved to be a deadly tandem.
“I hope President Barack Obama rectifies the former when President George W. Bush’s tax cuts for the wealthy expire in the near future.”
[RWC] As for the myth of “tax cuts for the wealthy,” there were tax RATE cuts, not tax cuts, and they went to everyone. As you can read in my critique of “Lottery winners” (7/25/06), “these cuts actually reduced the tax burden of low- and middle-income taxpayers and shifted the tax burden onto wealthier taxpayers.” Further, the rate cuts ultimately resulted in record tax revenue, not a cut.
“It would be the first strike of sanity (economics wise) after years of Reaganomics.”
[RWC] The core of “Reaganomics” is simply liberty. “Reaganomics” was the position that we all -- rich, poor, and in the middle -- should be able to keep more of what we earn.
“People say they distrust government, but look at what Reagan and the two Bushes did. They created more millionaires and billionaires than we’ve ever seen. What is a poor boy to do but to believe in big government as a buffer?”
[RWC] When did policies that foster an environment that “created more millionaires and billionaires than we’ve ever seen” become a bad thing? Does Mr. Miskulin oppose non-millionaires becoming millionaires? Mr. Miskulin apparently believes the economy is a zero-sum situation in which a person can better his finances only at the expense of someone else.
As for “What is a poor boy to do but to believe in big government …,” at least three of my four grandparents (including both grandfathers) didn’t attend or graduate from high school or trade schools. They raised their families in the late 1800s and early 1900s, before social programs. Both households were single-income and neither of my grandfathers worked at “skilled” labor or high-paying jobs. Despite that, they eventually managed to own their homes and saw to it all their children either went to college (Carnegie Tech) or trade school (Grace Martin Secretarial School), even during the Great Depression. They also managed to prepare adequately for retirement.
“Their tax cuts have never produced the revenue (through growth) that everybody anticipated. Hence, we have large deficits.”
[RWC] Not true. We can argue about how we got there, but 2007 federal tax revenue was a record $2.6 trillion, 27% more than the peak during the Clinton administration and we still managed to run a deficit of $161 billion. Consider this. In 1980, federal tax revenue was $517 billion. If revenue had increased at the rate of the consumer price index (CPI), 2007 tax revenue would have been “only” $1.3 trillion, or one-half of 2007’s actual federal tax revenue. Despite rising at twice the rate of the CPI, we still managed to run the 2007 deficit noted above. According to the Obama administration Office of Management and Budget, the 2010 deficit is projected to be $1.6 trillion. Spending is the problem, not tax revenue.
“The last 30 years, economically, have been, to coin somebody else’s phrase, a bright, shining lie where a part of the country benefits at the expense of the whole. Obama has a chance to change all that.”
[RWC] Mr. Miskulin has it backwards. Mr. Obama’s leftist policies and programs are designed to make sure “part of the country benefits at the expense of the whole.” The “part of the country [that] benefits?” The leftist ruling class.
© 2004-2010 Robert W. Cox, all rights reserved.