If Deficits Aren’t Bad, Why Doesn’t Uncle Sam Just Abolish All Taxes?

I enjoy and always admire James Flanigan’s columns because they show clear, analytical thinking. However, I disagree very much with his article of Jan. 6 (“Hand-Wringing on Budget Just Political Sport”) implying that worrying about federal government deficits is just a political sport and his conclusion that one should not be frightened by gloomy warnings about deficits being out of control.

Ever since Hjalmar Schacht, the president of the Reichsbank, got up in Berlin in 1933 and cheated the foreign creditors of Germany of their monies, many governments and their money managers have studied and copied his methods.

That includes the United States, which did so by devaluing the dollar in 1971 and again in 1985.

Domestically, we ain’t seen nothing yet, so to speak.

If deficits are nothing to worry about, why not abolish all taxes and run a deficit of $1 trillion? Then we shall have paradise from the Florida Keys to Nome, Alaska.

I think Federal Reserve Board Chairman Paul A. Volcker is the greatest financial genius of this century, having given us the financial stability of the last few years.

However, somehow we shall have to pay for our deficits, either by repudiating the dollar completely or permitting galloping inflation. So, gloomy warnings have been in order for at least the last 10 years. The fact the citizens don’t want to make sacrifices now is another issue.

KENNETH K. AUSTIN

Northridge