Alan Greenspan’s Consumption Tax Folly

Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan is calling for a federal consumption tax (“Greenspan Sees the Value of Taxing Personal Consumption Over Income,” March 4). Americans are being crushed under the heavy burden of taxation. Not only do we not need another tax, we need a significant reduction in the current income tax rates. It’s a spending problem, not a revenue problem.

We’re paying for bloated, mismanaged and wasteful agencies and programs that need a complete overhaul. That’s where the focus should be: shutting down useless programs; revamping inefficient agencies, offices, boards and commissions; firing useless bureaucrats; cutting government spending; balancing the budget.

Can a man of Greenspan’s stature be so blind not to recognize that one of history’s big lessons is that governments must be kept on a low-fat diet? Throughout the centuries, excessive taxation and rampant government expansion and spending have inevitably spelled economic disaster. History will not make an exception in the case of the U.S.

Keith W. Stump

Pasadena

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It’s time for Greenspan to retire. He and the rest of this administration are so out of touch with America that one would think we are soon to be living in a Third World country. The consumption tax would hurt those least able to pay for goods and not affect those with the most income. A flat tax is better suited to our society and creates stability and predictability for the taxpayers as well as the government.

A consumption tax inhibits the purchase of a new car or a needed refrigerator. So in the long run, with the Bush administration and a Republican Congress feeding at the trough, the poor can only get poorer and the rich richer and the elderly more disenfranchised.

Betty Seidmon

Los Angeles