Dear Editor,
Mark Twain once noted that people who don't read newspapers are ill informed; people who read newspapers are misinformed. It is hard to believe that Mr. Guzenda could put so much misinformation into such a short space in his LTE. For openers, he quotes an International Monetary Fund figure as the basis for the Social Security cost of living adjustment. SSA uses the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers (CPI-W) for COLA determinations.
He criticizes Reagan's "trickle-down" economics but ignores the fact that income inequality in 2012 under Obama is the worst since 1917. A UC Berkeley study shows that the top 10% earned twelve times what those in the bottom 10% earned.
He blames the Tea Party for the government shutdown but it was Harry Reid who refused to consider the Republican/Tea Party proposal to delay Obamacare for a year. Of course, the President is now (unconstitutionally) implementing delay after delay by executive order. Maybe Reid should have listened given the train wreck that was predicted has now come true.
And how does he manage to blame the Republicans for the sequester when the idea originated in the White House and was signed into law by the President? If President had carried out the recommendations of the Simpson-Bowles commission (which he appointed), the entire fiasco would have been avoided. Of course, the record shows he chose to ignore them.
Another curious contradiction in Mr. Guzenda's narrative is the job creation myth. The labor participation rate is now down to 63.2%, which is the lowest it has been since 1978!
However, the biggest whopper, excuse me, "factually untrue" statement is that every Republican president has left behind a deficit and every Democrat president has left behind a surplus. I'll minimize the boring numerical facts by listing the increase in national debt by recent presidential terms. Reagan's first term was a $656 billion increase and his second term was a $1.036 trillion increase. George H.W. Bush's only term showed a $1.587 trillion increase. Bill Clinton's first term showed a $1.122 trillion increase and with a Republican House, only a $418 billion increase in his second term. George W. Bush oversaw a $1.885 trillion increase in his first term and a $3.014 trillion in his second. Barack Obama called this "unpatriotic" and a "failure of leadership." However, in his first term alone, the debt increased $5.806 trillion. He is the only president to ever have a trillion dollar annual deficit and he managed four in a row! When he took office, the debt was $10.6 trillion. Now it is $17.3 trillion with a bullet to twenty!
One should be very careful to stand on solid ground before accusing others of spreading misleading claims!
Sincerely,
Bill Garvin
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