Your Opinion: Experiment in cutting taxes has failed

Dear Editor:

I liked Steve Sampson's anecdote about the pay raise and how "some" facts do not tell the whole story. But of course he then proceeds to tell his own version of America's debt by a selective reading of the facts.

I would vote for any politician of any party that would have real solutions to our public policy issues including the debt issue. The key point in our discussion was the issue that Reagan increased national debt in relation to the Gross Domestic Product by a whopping amount. Mr. Sampson's wild projection for a two-term Obama would fall far short of Reagan's budget increases.

Despite Mr. Sampson's simplistic rebuttal that Reagan was crippled by a Democratic congress, Reagan's own advisors did not see it that way. Reagan policy advisor Bruce Bartlett in Forbes magazine and David Stockman in the New York Times blame "ideological tax-cutters" in the Reagan administration. The Republican policy of "... starve the beast" continues to lead to ever lowering tax revenues for our government. Tax revenues to the government under President Obama are some of the lowest in the last 60 years. You have less money and it's becomes harder to pay your debts.

And as usual, the elephant in the room is always ignored. The major cause of the worldwide economic problems right now is the fact that our financial community wrecked our economy with speculation on the housing market. Obama inherited that and a disaster with two Republican wars being financed on a credit card. Obama's problem is that he has tried to solve these problems with Republican solutions. What policies would a McCain presidency have offered that would have paid our debts?

The constant tax cutting measures that have become the only solution offered by Republicans are no better than a dog chewing on its own tail. The more taxes cut, the more jobs that are lost and the less able is the government to pay its debts. Raising revenue with taxes is a necessary measure. Yet, to be realistic, Republicans have played a scorched earth tactic with our economy putting all their cards on what George H.W. Bush once called "voodoo economics". The voodoo is tax cuts lead to prosperity.

There have been 10 years of steady tax cuts for the wealthy and I think this experiment should be concluded. It is a massive failure. Merely blaming President Obama is fool's play.

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