Democrats and Tax and Spend

President Bush and his campaign crew have recently accused Gov. Bill Clinton and the Democrats of wanting to “tax and spend, tax and spend,” as if this was supposed to send chills down our collective spines. Am I missing something here? Taxing and spending is what governments do.

I’ve been a history professor for 33 years, I’ve lived in a number of foreign countries, I’ve even been a county supervisor, but I’ve never heard of any government from the local water district to the national level that doesn’t devote at least 90% of its time to taxing and spending. The real issue, on which there is honest disagreement, is what tax money should be spent on. But don’t pretend there is something unusual about taxing and spending.

What the Republicans have done the last 12 years, of course, is to borrow and spend, borrow and spend. They have done this so successfully that the national debt has increased from less than $1 trillion in 1980 to well over $3 trillion. These figures could stagger the imagination of the worst credit card junkie. There are thousands of failed savings and loans out there to show what happens when this policy is translated into action.

FRANK J. FROST

Santa Barbara