Monday, October 25, 2010

Let's put the Republicans back in power

No really, I want a Republican president again. A specific Republican president. A war hero. Dwight D. Eisenhower, Supreme Allied Commander in Europe during World War II and our 34th president.

Under him the unemployment rate was a mere 5.4%, an impressive figure considering how many soldiers were being demobilized following the biggest war the world had ever seen.

Of course I'm leaving out a few important things. Such as the fact that Eisenhower was a big government high tax weak on defense liberal, saying such things as this.
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms in not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense.

And of course this
Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes you can do these things. Among them are H. L. Hunt (you possibly know his background), a few other Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or business man from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid.

Or there was his growth-inhibiting tax policy with a top tax bracket of over 90%. Can you imagine playing 90% of your income as taxes? Of course not, because no one does. The debate over taxes has been wonderfully distorted with misleading figures, such as the constant stating of the top tier tax rate, ignoring entirely that only the highest tier of income is taxed at that rate and that as you go down the scale incomes are taxed lower and lower, to the point that for many people the majority of their income is not taxed at all. Throw in tax breaks and loopholes and income taxes are in the 10%-15% range, hardly the 30% that gets thrown around so easily.

Not to suggest that the tax system doesn't need reform. It certainly does.

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