This page was last updated on August 6, 2012.
What kind of society do you want?; Jerry Miskulin; Beaver County Times; August 5, 2012.
I encourage you to review Mr. Miskulin’s body of work in the archives. Mr. Miskulin has written at least 82 letters since 2004 (I didn’t critique all of them.). Most (all?) are illogical and full of falsehoods (not just wrong).
Mr. Miskulin expressed displeasure with the tea parties (here and here), proclaimed
Below is a detailed critique of the subject letter.
“I’m now 54 years old, and with age you realize there’s a right way and a wrong way of doing things. President Obama’s way of deficit reduction seems much more rational than the sock-it-to-the-middle-class-and-poor espoused by the Republicans.”
[RWC] Though he asserted it “seems much more rational,” Mr. Miskulin didn’t describe “President Obama’s way of deficit reduction.” As a reminder, the last two years the Democrat-majority Senate voted down Mr. Obama’s budget proposals 99-0 and 97-0.
Let’s look at Mr. Obama’s “much more rational” “way of deficit reduction.” Consider the following quote: “We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work. And I have just one interest, and if I am wrong … somebody else can have my job. I want to see this country prosperous. I want to see people get a job. I want to see people get enough to eat. We have never made good on our promises … I say after eight years of this Administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started … And an enormous debt to boot.” - Henry Morgenthau, FDR’s Treasury Secretary during the Great Depression, testifying before the House Ways and Means Committee in May 1939.
Mr. Miskulin also didn’t describe “the sock-it-to-the-middle-class-and-poor espoused by the Republicans.” Does Mr. Miskulin believe there are no “middle-class-and-poor” Republicans?
“Seems there are people now who want to bring about a regression to our society. They want things the way they were from 1875 to 1929. They want a society where they can do whatever they want. High society or success is made at the expense of another, as Bob Dylan would say.”
[RWC] I have no idea what Mr. Miskulin is talking about. Since Mr. Miskulin mentioned the period before 1929, let’s take a quick look at the 1920s. Have you heard of the depression/recession of 1920-1921 [the last year of the Woodrow Wilson (a Progressive Democrat and in the survey’s top six to eight) administration]? Probably not, though most of us learned about the Roaring ‘20s. So how did we get from a depression/recession to the Roaring ‘20s? Presidents Warren G. Harding (R) and Calvin Coolidge (R) must have jacked up spending, taxes, and debt, right? Not even close. Using 1920 (the first year after World War I) as a base, the Harding/Coolidge administrations reduced spending 55% by 1927, reduced taxes 45% by 1925, and ran eight straight surpluses. According to the BLS, unemployment for 1923-1929 averaged 3.3%. Now you know why lefties like to brush over the 1920s and belittle Messrs. Harding and Coolidge; it provides proof Hoover/FDR/Obama “stimulus” programs don’t work but conservative principles do.
“High society or success is made at the expense of another?” Though they tend not to use these words, lefties push the proposition that the economy is a “fixed pie” or a zero-sum game. The implication is one person’s (the “oppressor” in leftyspeak) success comes only at the expense of someone else (the “oppressed”). That is, Bob has a mansion and you have a hut because Bob unfairly took your slice of the pie. This position also manifests itself in complaints about the income/wealth gap between “the rich” (the “oppressors”) and the average family. This line of thinking is how some activists and politicians try to sell government redistribution of income/wealth from the hands of “a few” (the “oppressors”) to their constituents (the “oppressed”) via regressive taxation policies, subsidies, and outright handouts. If the U.S. economy were a fixed pie, we should be in abject poverty. Why? Our population in 1790 (our first census) was just under four million and our current population is about 312 million. That means we would have 78 times as many people sharing the pie today as in 1790.
“There are people who want favors and yet at the same time want to be the favorite. They want customs, superstitions and the law to be on their side, but pride goes right before the fall.”
[RWC] Again, I have no idea what Mr. Miskulin is talking about.
© 2004-2012 Robert W. Cox, all rights reserved.