Letter: Spending could be even worse

Wednesday, March 31, 2004 | 9:02 a.m.

Ridiculous would be correct only if one does not pay attention to current events and is too young to remember big spenders like President Lyndon Johnson and President Jimmy Carter. President John Kennedy was a spender, but he also cut taxes.

President Bush signed the "No Child Left Behind Act" that many Democrats, including Sen. Ted Kennedy, supported. It is now being taken to task by the Democrats because $300 billion is not enough. Bush also promoted the passage of a $400-$500 billion prescription drug bill, but the Democrats preferred a drug bill that would have cost more than $1 trillion!

The point is: President Bush is spending like a Democrat in order to garner a few left-wing votes. While I wish he would not do that, I guess a $500 billion deficit is better than a deficit of a couple of trillion dollars.

Neither Bill Clinton nor the Republican-controlled Congress balanced the budget and created large surpluses. The credit goes to the workers and entrepreneurs who have created the engine that drives the U.S. economy. It also goes to President Reagan's tax cuts during the 1980s that set the stage for the workers and entrepreneurs to create the greatest economic expansion in U.S. history during the 1990s.

President Bush has the proper tax policies in place (if he can get them made permanent). If he can resist his own and the Democrats' spending impulses, the stage is set for another long period of economic expansion.

F. JAY HARRELL