Tax Cut Proposals Are on the Wrong Track
In “A Tax Cut That Hurts” (editorial, Nov. 4), The Times writes: “Given that the richer folks are less likely to spend their tax cuts, there is not much immediate economic stimulus to the plan. Indeed, most studies show that the last round of tax cuts was mostly saved by jittery taxpayers, not spent.” If the middle class didn’t spend after the last round of tax cuts, what makes you think that even poorer people who live on even thinner financial ice will run down to Wal-Mart and immediately spend their checks, which, by the way, aren’t really “rebates” but rather transfer payments, as they never earned the income to begin with?
These transfer payments will more likely be used to pay off debt or go toward savings. Moving money from one person’s pocket to another person’s pocket creates no new net gains in the economy, and thus no new growth.
What ails this economy now, as before the Sept. 11 attacks, is a deeper, more profound, longer-term lack of investor and business confidence that dates back over a year, not a temporary lack of consumer spending. Temporary schemes designed to put money into people’s pockets will have, at best, temporary results.
Greg Teegarden
Studio City
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OK. I’ve supported President Bush after Sept. 11 in our endeavors against terrorism, and I have complimented him on his conduct of our efforts in Afghanistan. What I don’t like is his continued effort, now using the patriotism mantra, to turn our country into a plutocracy: bailouts for the airlines, but none for the laid-off airline employees; more large tax breaks for business, but few for workers (witness no extension of unemployment benefits); children of the now-unemployed without health insurance, but no relief planned by either party in Congress. Let’s address the problems of the people. Put money in the hands of people who will spend it. That is what will spur our economy.
Jim Hoover
Huntington Beach
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Paul Conrad (cartoon, Commentary, Nov. 2) has precisely expressed my outrage with the Republican House leadership, who are using the horror of the craven terrorist attacks on our great nation as an excuse to pour billions of our tax dollars into the pigsty of government welfare for multinational corporations. I had forgotten that the most dangerous region in America is the place between the House Republicans and any disgraceful tax giveaway to big business.
Neal R. Alvarez
Monterey Park