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Aug. 1, 2005 Though I don’t usually engage in direct debate on this web site, Mr. Gelbart’s lack of civility has goaded me to respond. When someone like Mr. Gelbart gets up the courage to stand off a few hundred miles and lob nasty epithets at someone else, such as his calling Neal Boortz a liar, and when he further makes the statement that “the figures are available for anyone who cares to look…,” he had best stop to think that somebody just MIGHT look up his claim. Someone like me, for example! I love hearing liberals make wacko claims and then looking up the facts that prove them totally delusional. After the Kemp-Roth tax cut of 1981 and the Reagan Tax Reform Act of 1986, our federal income tax rate was changed from fourteen brackets, starting with a 14% rate up to a top marginal rate of 70%, to three brackets: 15%, 28% and 33%. This was not the flat tax proposed by many today, and which has worked well when tried around the world recently. However, it was much less progressive. And might I say that “progressive” is to real progress as a lightning bug is to real lightning, to paraphrase Mark Twain. If you hear anything labeled “progressive,” you can be sure it is regressive regarding any benefit to society. But I digress. Back to taxes. Contrary to Mr. Gelbart’s claim, the real (inflation-adjusted) tax revenue collected from the top 1 percent of earners rose a whopping 51% between 1980 and 1990. “The percentages were 35.9% and 28.8% for the top 5% and top 10% of earners, respectively. Likewise, the share of the total tax paid for each of these groups went up sharply, as it did on a per return basis.” (Patton, J. Ph.D, Department of Economics, Bellevue University) One notes that, contrary to the bleating about “tax cuts for the rich,” the tax collected from the rich ROSE MARKEDLY. One also notes that the tax collected from THE POOR DECLINED MARKEDLY. That is, a flatter, less progressive tax is LESS REGRESSIVE! Note carefully: PROGRESSIVE IS REGRESSIVE! As to why the budget deficit rose, one only has to note that congress did not keep its bargain with Reagan and did not cut expenditures. Au contraire, mes amis, the congressional spendthrifts behaved like drunken sailors on shore leave and increased payouts by 112% (What Went Right in the 1980s” by Richard B. McKenzie.) Now I would not make the claim that Mr. Gelbart is a liar. That would require that I have knowledge that he was deliberately spreading falsehoods. In fact, I am pretty sure he isn’t a liar. It is fairly clear that he is just an ignorant left wing partisan ideologue who believes whatever Al Franken says. And AL FRANKEN IS A LIAR! As to his ridiculous claim that 99% of economics don’t agree with supply-side economics, see below. Also try Nobel Laureate Milton Friedman, former Chairman of the Dept. of Economics at George Mason University, Walter E. Williams, Ph.D., Thomas Sowell, Arthur Laffer, and quite a great many more. In fact, probably the only one left who disbelieves in supply-side economics is that partisan hack from the N. Y. Times, Paul Krugman. Note to Mr. Gelbart: Bad manners is compounded by ignorance. If you are a dirty pot, don’t call kettles black. If you have a beam in your eye, don’t complain about the mote in thy brothers. Etc.,etc. In other words, grow up! Laffer has the last laugh, it seems. He who Laffers last laughs best. Further reading. 1 Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations. (New York: Random House, 1937), p.835. 2 Ludwig von Mises, Human Action. (Chicago: Henry Regnery Company, 1966). p. 741. 3 James Gwartney and Richard Stroup, Introduction to Economics. (New York: The Dryden Press, 1994), p. 361. ------------ About the author Brooks A. Mick: 63-yr-old physician, still practicing medicine but retired from the US Army. Write just for the fun of it, but working on novel in the vein of Tom Clancy's politico-military genre. Email: brooks15@cox.net ------------ All articles are EXCLUSIVE to Useless-Knowledge.com and are not allowed to be posted on other websites. ARTICLE THIEVES WILL BE PROSECUTED! |
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