To the editor:

Considering the state of the economy now, it is strange how conservatives can still tout the idea that the Bush tax cuts worked, as Craig Campbell does in response to my letter to the editor.

Tax revenues grew after 2003, but it is easy for something to grow from a low point. The growth from 2000 to 2007 was only 15.8 percent compared to 91 percent for the 1980s and 122 percent for the 1960s. To blame the Bush deficits on spending flies in the face of the facts. Real spending only grew by 26 percent from 2000 to 2007 compared to 57 percent in the 1960s and 41 percent in the 1970s when the debt did not grow nearly as much.

The problem in the Bush years was that real tax revenues only grew by 5.1 percent, which becomes an even larger debt problem because an increasing share of that revenue is FICA taxes, which need to be paid back to retirees.

Finally, Campbell wrongly identifies everyone’s interests with the interests of people with dividend income over $2 million. When I point out that $56 billion of tax cuts goes to those millionaires yearly, Campbell says “The money is ours.” Since I do not make over $2 million a year, the money is not ours — theirs and mine. It is only theirs. He writes “we got to keep more of what we earned,” but dividends are UNearned income. So really THEY got to keep more of the money they did NOT have to work for.

Thomas Koch,
Leavenworth