In response to Craig Westover, Republican activist, Sunday 07/25/2010 Tribune editorial
http://www.startribune.com/...
To Craig Westover: (editorial in Sunday 7/25/2010 Star-Tribune)
You folks have now had 30 years of Reaganomics to test-drive those free-market, U of Chicago economic theories (with a brief respite during the Clinton years, during which time the economy rallied, and we had a Federal budget surplus). You see where that has left us today.
A favorite Republican talking point is that if you tax rich people too much, they will leave this country and take all the jobs with them. Well, ahem, looks like they ALREADY did that. Absconded with all the money and jobs to such free-market paradises as China, India and Dubai.
I would find your argument a lot more compelling if the private sector was really being taxed to death, but they clearly are not. Tax rates have in fact never been as low for the rich in this country as they are now. And they're still sending jobs away as fast as they can, to the cheap (slave)-labor, unregulated, laissez-faire parts of the world.
Job creation by government is not perfect, but at least we can VOTE for those guys (and "throw the bums out" when necessary). Republicans like to say "government doesn't work". Well, it's hard for government to work when they do their best to "starve the beast" to make sure it can't work.
George Bush Senior called it "voodoo economics", and he was right.
Time to try what worked in the past. Way less Reagan, way more FDR.
That was my LTE. I'm not a rocket scientist or an activist, but I am smart enough to call out these Republican propaganda points. It will be interesting to see if the Strib actually prints my letter.