Letter to the editor on the economy...

A reader of my blog (www.JimNichols4.com) sent me this letter to the editor he wrote. 

 

As always feel free to email (or tweet @JimN2010) letters to the editor, comments, articles you find interesting; as your insights and perspective are important.  The voice of everyday citizens gets drowned out in the nonsense of our mass media and TV personality driven politics.

 

From the inbox:

 To the Editor:

Chant: "The stimulus didn't work, didn't work, didn't work…and…er, you shouldn't have tried it!" But the only people claiming -- with their fingers crossed -- that the economic stimulus isn't working are same people who HOPE it won't and did all possible to sabotage it -- Republican politicians. And these same pols claim CREDIT for stimulus projects in their districts -- even though they actually voted to kill the stimulus!
    

"Well," the pols say, "we still have high unemployment, so it must not be working." But the only valid claim against the original stimulus is that it wasn't ENOUGH to save even more jobs. Economists at the time warned of just that, because the 2008 economic collapse was so massive -- by the time Obama took office on January 20, 2009, 11.9 million people were already unemployed! From signing of the stimulus law on February 17, 2009, 65% of the stimulus funds have been paid out, so there's more in the pipeline.

But obstruction by Republicans ("Spend money to save jobs? Never!") and the fear of "deficits!" they conjured up caused Congress to hold back on the amount of stimulus. Even so, several million jobs have been saved or created (say the Congressional Budget Office and Council of Economic Advisors) -- teachers, firefighters, police officers and others in state, county, and city governments all over the country were kept on the job; stimulus projects created private construction jobs; and tax breaks went to 120 million households. "Don't care," say the Republicans -- those working people should have been dumped in the economic black hole as well.

Republicans SAY they oppose the stimulus because it adds to the Federal deficit…BUT…. Under the law passed by the Republicans (2001 and 2003), the Bush tax breaks expire automatically at the end of this year. While Democrats want to continue those tax breaks for families with incomes under $250,000, Republicans won't do it unless the tax breaks to the top brackets are extended -- and the much higher cost of those top-bracket tax breaks is added to the deficit! (Talking out of both sides of their mouths at the same time DOES get them confused.)

So if the Republicans get control of government again, what are their plans to fix the economy? Stop the stimulus. Cut corporate taxes. MORE top bracket tax breaks. That's the plan! More "trickle down" on working people.