Once again Lowell Grisham has attacked the Republican Party for effects from the Democrat Party. He begins with the statement that the “tax code has been shifting wealth and income toward the rich and powerful for 30 years.” Thirty years ago Ronald Reagan was president of the United States.
The truth is the tax code is made law by the Congress of the United States. The House of Representatives was presided by the Democrat Party for 60 of the 64 years from 1931 until 1995. During this period, Grisham’s “rich and powerful” produced an incomprehensible tax code that was improved by the supply-side tax cuts of Presidents John F. Kennedy and Reagan.
The progressive tax code Grisham touts subjected those with higher incomes to higher taxes and produced the loopholes that he decries. Tax cuts must, by defi nition, benefi t those who pay more taxes than those who pay less or none.
He goes on to saythat “Prosperity has not trickled down.” I would argue that it did, citing statistics on employment, interest rates and gross domestic product. But he would certainly acknowledge health care has not trickled down from Obamacare.
Grisham says the Tea Party wants to “sabotage the entire economy” and the shutdown came when “the defi cit was shrinking, unemployment was going down.” The defi cit is only an inconsequential fact of when the budget gets balanced; Focusing on it is to ignore the importanceof what is in the budget.
The meaningful truths are that the debt has exploded and the employed are increasingly underemployed based on their education and skills and are increasingly parttime workers.
When the Tea Party was new it was called a party of “racists.” When that was disproved a new label came into vogue, “extremists.” Strange that a priest would embrace that condemnation, that judgment.
Opinion, Pages 5 on 10/30/2013