Balance the budget the old-fashioned way, George
Once again, George Will (Jan. 4) is spouting his “government for the rich” agenda by blaming social programs for budget deficits and the national debt. As usual, in making his case George cited some vague stuff about the Constitution while ignoring a few very important facts.
First, there is no fundamental difference in the impact on national debt between a dollar of tax cut for the rich versus a dollar of entitlement for the poor. They both increase the debt in equal measure.
Second, the national debt in 1980 was less than $1 trillion and that included paying for wars, depressions, interstate highways and a healthy dose of social-support programs. The truth is, we were in this sound financial position because Congress raised and lowered tax rates as needed in order to keep the national debt under control. It was simple math, not Constitutional gobbledygook, as he suggests.
Then, in 1980, using flawed logic, the Republicans began their war against the middle class and the poor by reducing taxes and increasing defense spending in an attempt to eliminate or reduce social programs by citing budget deficits. The problem was and is that the dollars of tax cuts and the related tax avoidance legislation, plus the increases in defense spending, simply exceed the amount that can be humanely squeezed out of an increasingly poor middle- and lower-class population.
So George, you want a balanced budget, do it the old-fashioned way, like it was before 1980.
Richard Wallace
Hardeeville
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This story was originally published January 11, 2018 at 3:38 PM with the headline "Balance the budget the old-fashioned way, George."