Dear Editor:
Your readers are again enduring half-truths and misleading statements from Jo Ann Emerson. I appreciate she is fighting to keep her position in order to continue to do the bidding of her lobbyist supporters, but she should show respect to her constituents by at least being honest and trying to give a complete picture of problems she describes. She complains that Congress did not pass tax relief before it recessed. That is true, but she leaves out the fact that Republicans, by their continual use of a threat of a filibuster, refused to have a vote on tax relief for families earning less than $250,00 a year. They demanded that all those covered by the Bush tax relief be covered. The least effective way to stimulate the economy is to give tax relief to the rich, but the “Republican’ts” were willing to hurt the rest of us to help the top 2% of people with a $700 billion tax cut worth an average of $100,000 per person. The argument that all small businesses are hurt is wrong. Only 2% of small businesses would see an increase in their taxes. Tax relief increases our debt. If we incur debt there needs to be a good enough reason to believe the use of the money will deal with the debt or forestall worse consequences. The Republicans held 97% of us hostage to service the needs of the top 2% and then they campaign with the complaint there is tax uncertainty. If the Republicans had allowed the vote to go forward instead of continuing their class warfare in favor of the wealthy there would be tax certainty for people who need and would spend the money. (Another fact Jo Ann leaves out is why the Bush tax cut was slated to last only ten years. The ten year limit is because the tax cut bill was done under reconciliation, which requires a ten year limit. There was enough opposition to this gift to the rich and the bloating of the debt that they could not bring the bill to a vote.) Jo Ann fails to mention that taxes can serve worthwhile purposes. That may seem obvious, but all you hear from Republicans is taxes are bad. But from a Republican point of view (that is, reduce government so that corporations can do what they please) all taxes are bad because without tax revenue we can not have a government. Their answer to all our problems is to privatize and reduce taxes. (Can you imagine where our Social Security would be if it had been privatized before the economic collapse?) But the real choice is not between government regulations and complete freedom, but between government regulations and corporate control of our lives. Do you want corporations whose only mission is to make a profit setting your wages based on their workers in China, telling you where to live, deciding where your children can go to school, having complete control over your retirement, deciding the quality of food you can buy? We don’t need more “Republican’t” solutions to our problems.
Jim Vokac
Willow Springs