CNHI
CHICKASHA —
Reader: Letter missed mark
on TEA Party
Dear Editor:
This letter is in response to Kim Powell's August 21st letter to the editor.
I mentioned in an earlier letter that I have become embarrassed to be called a democrat.
I would like to thank Mrs. Powell for illustrating my point perfectly.
It was claimed as "fact" that Tea Party members were against Obama because 9.8% taxes were too high.
That statement is painfully misleading at best. The statistical average tax burden for an individual in Chickasha, OK is 9.8%... IF you fail to include the 11% property tax, the count tax, the 4% city tax, fuel taxes, and state corporate taxes if you own a business.
But Powell said "against Obama" so let's not forget taxes generated outside of the state of Oklahoma.
So we have to also exclude' the IRS and their 10% to 35% of income (depending), capital gains tax, federal unemployment tax, luxury tax, recreational vehicle tax, rental car tax, resort tax, social security tax, various excise taxes, gift tax, generation skipping tax, road usage tax, federal and state telephone taxes, and the list goes on and on.
The facts seem to suggest that our tax burden is closer to 50% than 9.8% Intentional misrepresentation of the "facts" is no way to win an argument.
Ms. Powell's second paragraph, "I didn't call any individual... anything at all." Paragraph 7, "Let me make it clear, these are the people I call Radical and Right Wing and Wacko..." Well, that clearly speaks for itself.
I was also curious about the "Obama Gangster Color" Ms. Powell mentioned. I was unable to find it in a legitimate new source, but I did find it on some obscure blog site.
You can find anything on some of those blogs (left and right leaning). By the way, I also found a website claiming Bush and Obama were part of a reptilian race of beings from the center of the earth.
To quote Powell, "Your leader, [Michele Bachmann], is literally trying to start a civil war in this country." I checked the "facts" on this one as well.
First of all, the Representative of Minnesota's 6th congressional district is in no way affiliated with the Grady County Tea Party.
Second, 17 months ago, Bachmann had a quote about Cap and Trade that 'went viral' on the internet. She said, "I want people in Minnesota armed and dangerous on this issue of the energy tax because we need to fight back" and then quoted Thomas Jefferson. It is just silly to believe that is a call to war. And again, it appears that only fringe websites continue to run articles about the subject.
It would be irresponsible to list some of these websites here, so I will make sure fact-checking information for everything mentioned above is available at the next Grady County Tea Party meeting on Sept.2nd.
Marlene Croskey
Letter offered
liberal song
and dance
Dear Editor:
There you go again Kim. Your last letter was more of the same liberal song and dance without once addressing the real issues.
I hope you don't mind being called Kim.
I'm conservative and prefer to use the fewest letters possible. First of all I am a registered independent so your attacks on Republicans don't bother me at all.
In fact both of our political parties seem to be engaged in a contest to see which one will destroy our country first.
The Tea Party is about holding all politicians accountable.
It is about going back to a limited, constitutional, responsible government. That is what freedom loving people desire. Kim, you continue to make false accusations of racism within the Tea Party.
The liberal press have been following every rally trying to capture only one slip of racism and have found zero. Millions of people coming together in a grassroots movement and not one shred of evidence of racism. That really is incredible.
Let's talk about real issues. The unprecedented acceleration of growth in the federal government over the past 10 years must be stopped! This year we are projected to have a $1.3 Trillion deficit but at this writing that figure is already appearing to be too low.
Senator Tom Coburn was in town recently and defined the term Trillion. If you spend $1.00 every second or $3600.00 every hour it will take you 30,000 years to spend a Trillion dollars. Does that scare anyone? Does anyone care? You said I made a false statement when I said people would work harder if they could keep more of the money they earned.
I don't know where in liberal la la land you've been living but let's look at historical facts and determine who is telling the truth.
In 1981 then President Reagan reduced the tax rates. In fact there were three periods of tax rate reduction in the U.S. in the 20th century - during the 1920's, 1960's, and 1980's.
Each time tax rates were cut, the economy soared and tax collections from the wealthiest 1% of Americans soared.
In the 1980's the income tax share paid by the tip 1% rose from 16% in 1980 to 26% in 1990. total tax revenues after the 1980 tax cuts doubled from 500 Billion in 1980 to $ Trillion by 1990. Why do liberals deny this historical record and pursue policies that penalize productive citizens thus killing businesses and the jobs they provide?
I really enjoyed your description of former President Bush as a rich white man. Perhaps you are too young to remember this but once upon a time a rich white man named John F. Kennedy, a Democrat, became president and lowered tax rates and made the statement "A rising tide lifts all boats".
I don't suppose he would be accepted in today's Democratic party who are more interested in creating an economic tsunami destroying all boats.
The truth is if we played your game and confiscated all of the income from the wealthy it would only last government a few months and then what?
We have a spending problem, not a revenue problem. To further prove my point let's look at what I call a tale of two states.
First, take Texas, no state income tax, business friendly environment, doing rather well.
Next let's look at California, (the land of fruits an nuts) high taxes, excessive regulation, unionized public employees, Liberal utopia. BANKRUPT! Why?
Too much medicinal marijuana? Not enough medicinal marijuana? I would like an explanation why this great liberal experiment has failed and why we should continue to lead the entire country down this same failed path. The latest so called emergency $26 Billion stimulus-type bill promised to save 300,000 jobs.
Do the math, that is at a cost of $86,666.00 per job! This is a complete and total outrage!
Who can defend this incompetence? Please, it is time to put country first, not political parties.
The late Milton Friedman, and economist, made a wise observation.
He said "A society that puts equality ahead of freedom will end up with neither equality nor freedom." Well said.
Finally Kim, I can only hope you and all others living in liberal namby pamby land have a sense of humor because my final argument is taken from the richest and wisest man who every lived, King Solomon.
In Ecclesiastes 10:2 Solomon proclaimed "The heart of the wise inclines to the right, but the heart of the fool to the left." Enough said.
Johnny Trammell
Chickasha
