May 24th, 2003

To the editor:

Jim Lahm’s letter supporting Bush’s tax cut (May 20th) claims that the wealthy business owner earning $1.2 million per year deserves the tax cut because the worker earning $42,000 is not in a position to create jobs. First of all, I’d like to thank him for his honesty in affirming that Bush’s voodoo economics is all about tax cuts that serve the wealthy, first and foremost. Next, I’d like to point out that no sane business owner adds jobs solely on the basis of a tax cut; jobs are added only when sales go up. When do sales go up? Sales go up when many workers earning $42,000 a year have more to spend. The economic stimulating effect of returning more tax money to wealthy Americans is likely to be nil, as ten Nobel prize-winning economists have pointed out (see http://www.epinet.org/stmt/2003/statement_signed.pdf). The reason this is relevant is that the Republicans will soon be pushing to end the sunset chicanery in the recently passed tax cut.

Kurt