Letter: When it comes to money, feds don’t know best

Friday, Jan. 3, 2003 | 4:34 a.m.

Cox News Service correspondent Marilyn Geewax's Dec. 29 story, "Bush's 2003 plan: Reaganomics reborn," conveniently misrepresented facts that need to be corrected. The author seems to have missed the fact that revenue did grow as a result of tax cuts. The only credit she gave it -- "The notion that lower taxes led to higher revenue" -- does not represent the facts.

When President Reagan lowered taxes, revenue grew 95 percent from 1980 to 1990. The problem was spending! This is despite Democratic leaders saying they would cut dollar for dollar (spending to tax cuts). Spending grew 135 percent during the same period. Military spending was only a small part of the spending increase. Almost all of the spending increase was on government social programs. Now it does not take a genius to see what the problem was.

The increases in revenue from tax cuts in the 1980s is consistent with what happened with President Kennedy when he cut taxes and the economy grew, giving the government more revenue. Government does not create new jobs and does not grow the economy with its spending.

I didn't like the patronizing Geewax did when she wrongly stated, "It was the 1993 tax hike, pushed by President Clinton, that finally reversed the explosion in government borrowing." The tax hike hurt the growth, according to reliable economists! Never mind it was the Republican Congress that denied Clinton the billions he wanted to waste on government spending that helped keep spending in check. Even the Republicans could have done better if they had any guts!

Writers like Marilyn Geewax seem to think that it is government that knows best with what to do with our money. Like her hero President Clinton said when talking about giving taxpayers a tax cut in 1996: "We could give it to them but then we would have to worry about if they (taxpayers) spent it right."

KEN FLECK