The following is my response to a letter to the Editor, USA Today, April 9, 2010. I am tired of the factually inaccurate drival that passes through the pages of our media. Does anyone in the print media vet articles to determine if the facts are accurate or do they simply select those that support their editorial board's progressive view? I believe we need to stand up to this.
Dear Sir or Madam -
Rick Marcell asserts in his editorial “Tax policy works well” (USA Today April 9, 2010) that Jonah Goldberg fails to mention that “much of the debt happened under George W. Bush’s presidency. Bush left the debt at $10.6 trillion after inheriting a budget surplus.” This statement, while essentially factually correct, is intentionally misleading: there is not necessarily a connection between surpluses and deficits and overall debt nor is George W. Bush responsible for $10.6 trillion in debt, as the letter tries to imply.
An everyday example best illustrates the attempted obfuscation. If I buy a $200,000 house, my debt increases by $200,000. If my annual income is $50,000 and I have money left over at the end of the year after I pay off everything I owe, including the $18,000 per year mortgage on my $200,000 debt, I have a surplus. In other words you can run a surplus while still increasing your debt. So, according to Obama’s current Presidential Budget (Table 7.1, Federal Debt at the End of the Year) at the end of 1992 the debt was $4.002 trillion, at the end of 2000 it was $5.628 trillion, and at the end of 2008 it was $9.986 trillion. The debt under Clinton grew $1.626 trillion, and under Bush it grew $4.358 trillion. The difference? My opinion is that Clinton benefited from two things: (1) Newt Gingrich and the Contract with America, which imposed fiscal control on the President by limiting spending and forcing him to dramatically curtail welfare entitlement spending and (2) the dot.com bubble, which dramatically inflated stock prices on which capital gains taxes were paid, increasing tax revenue to the Treasury. Bush on the other hand faced: (1) two recessions (most of the spending to address both the dot.com bubble and housing bubble was incurred during his administration), (2) the cost of two wars, (3) the expansion of government to address terrorist threats, and (4) out of control social spending by both parties in congress.
While we can have an honest debate on the wisdom of the decisions that were made by various administrations, we should not have to debate the facts. However, in a socially progressive, post-modern world where the “truth” is eschewed and the ends-justify-the-means, we should expect nothing less than factual misrepresentation especially if such misrepresentation isolates, focuses on, and seeks to destroy the representation and credibility of the other person.
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