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4:20 PM Friday, June 24, 2011

This country must deal with its debt problem, but clinging to rigid ideological positions will only make our economic problems worse.

There are two ways to deal with budget deficits: Increase revenue and reduce spending. The Republican Party, at both the state and national level, says that spending cuts are the only way to address deficits.

Congressional leaders have said that tax increases are off the table. They claim that tax cuts create jobs and that raising taxes would destroy jobs. But this ignores some obvious realities.

Tax cuts aren’t an effective way to create jobs. The massive Bush tax cuts produced little real job growth. Rather, they fueled a speculative boom that led to real job losses when it ended.

In contrast, the American economy saw robust growth during the 1990s, when tax rates were higher.

A second reality is that spending cuts produce job losses and economic harm. As government programs are cut, workers are laid off. These job losses hurt the economy just as much as private-sector job losses.

A realistic solution to the debt and deficit problems must include both spending cuts and tax increases.

The Bush tax cuts disproportionately benefited those in the highest income brackets. Average American workers saw little wage growth, and millions lost jobs and homes.

To ask them to sacrifice more, and to ask nothing of those who profited most, is callous and cruel.

Lucy Anne McKosky

Centerville

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