Iowa’s Governor Tom Vilsack today suggests the best way to pay for the War and disaster relief is to reduce spending and raise taxes. (“Cuts That Heal” WSJ Opinion Section October 13, 2005).
In just five years, the president and his party have turnded the largest budget surpluses in our history into the largest deficits. The’ve already added $1.3 trillion to our national debt with unwise tax cuts and runaway spending.
Perhaps Governor Vilsack may have forgotten, but the 2000 recession, bursing of the “dot-com” bubble, and corporate scandals such as Enron and Tyco occured during the Clinton “trickle-down immorality” years-not to mention 9-11 which could have very well have been avoided if Slick had seized the many opportunities to capture and kill Osama. These events, and not President Bush’s much maligned tax cuts for the “rich”, caused the economy to contract and the deficit to widen. By the way, since President Bush’s tax cuts have gone into effect the deficit projections have decreased dramatically and almost 4 million new jobs have been created. But we shouldn’t expect that hard economic data will disuade liberals such as Governor Vilsack from continuing to talk down the economy. Funny how we have not heard claims about the Bush economy being the “worst since Herbert Hoover.”
While I agree that spending restraint is vital, the cuts Governor Vilsack suggests merely nibble around the edges by citing the usual liberal bogeymen (“ending corporate welfare” and “cutting bil oil and gas subsidies.” The largest unfunded liabilities are Medicare/Medicaid and Social Security. President Bush and the GOP have proposed fundamentally reforming both of these massive government entitlement programs which threaten to devastate our economy if left untouched. Governor Vilsack and his fellow Democrats have done nothing but demagogue and marginalize these proposals to offer Health Savings Accounts and Individual Retirement Accounts to Americans who don’t want socialized medicine and 1% returns on SS.
Governor Vilsack then proposes raising taxes on the “rich.” (He like all liberals, who never call them tax hikes, refers to them as “restoring the top tax rates to the Clinton era”) Wow, what a novel concept for a modern day liberal-Democrat to propose. Is it any wonder that Democrats consistently lose elections? Why should Americans even listen to Democrats regarding economic policy when they continue to ignore the empirical evidence which has consistently demonstrated that across the board marginal tax cuts increase tax revenues to the federal treasury, reduce the deficit, increases investment, employment, and economic growth? One need only consider the Coolidge/Hoover marginal rate cuts of the 20’s, JFK’s tax cuts in the 60’s, Regan’s tax cuts in the 80s, and Bush 43’s cuts to understand how allowing all Americans to keep more of their hard earned money is the most effective way to create wealth and grow the economy. Democrats such as Governor Vilsack perpetually ignore this axiom choosing to instead engage in class warfare pitting the “rich” against “working Americans.” (As if “rich’ people don’t “work.”) What I can’t believe is how such supposedly educated and enlightened liberals continue to ignore such a basic economic concept which has been proven time and time again. Tax cuts increase tax revenues, reduce the deficit, and raise the standard of living accross the board, expecilly to minorities and the poor.
In contrast, every time taxes have been increased(Think about the Ted Kennedy Millionaires Yact Tax”), especially on the most productive members of our society (the “rich”), tax revenues, investment, employment, and economic growth have always decreased. Remember Jimmy Carter’s “stagflation” and economic “misery index” anybody?
Governor Vilsack’s prescription for the economy (raising taxes and opposing fundamental market based reforms in health care and Social Security) is further evidence that Democrats cannot be trusted to govern especially during war time when robust economic growth and fiscal discipline is vital to waging an effective War on Terror!