Your excoriation of President Obama’s budget proposal (“Obama again disappoints on deficit reduction plan,” April 15) reminded me of an old saying: “When the law is on your side, pound the law; when the facts are on your side, pound the facts; when nothing is on your side, pound the table.”

You must have very sore fists.

Your claim that a “small percentage of Americans carries an undue share of the tax burden — and those at the top of the economic scale drive much of the economy through investment and job creation,” which tries to make two separate claims appear to be one, only betrays the lack of facts to support your opinion.

According to Forbes, the richest 400 Americans pay tax at a rate of only 17 percent. The Wall Street Journal reported that General Electric and Bank of America paid no taxes at all in 2010. Yet the official unemployment rate remains at nearly 9 percent — Valueline puts the real rate closer to 18 percent — when our wealthiest pay so little tax? Who are the “strong” then, and what is their “sacrifice” for our country?

As for Rep. Paul Ryan’s plan, you failed to mention that the revenue projections from the Heritage Foundation he relied on were quietly withdrawn from public view. That wasn’t surprising, since those projections relied on outlandish projections of economic and employment growth — projections, as macroeconomic advisers commented, that were “generated by manipulating an econometric model that would not otherwise have produced the result.” How then can you call the Ryan plan serious?

No, there isn’t much fact or logic to support your opinion. Instead, you resort to the same tired old tirades about Obama, Democrats and federal spending, without mentioning that the GOP took a budget surplus in 2000 to a deficit in 2008.

Now that’s truly disappointing.

 


Only subscribers are eligible to post comments. Please subscribe or login first for digital access. Here’s why.

Use the form below to reset your password. When you've submitted your account email, we will send an email with a reset code.