Re "Mia Love's budget plan: Do her deep cuts go too far?" (Tribune, July 5):

When I read through the budget cuts proposed by Mia Love, the Republican candidate for Utah's 4th Congressional District, I thought of the conservative's plan to shrink the government by "starving the beast."

This is done by first reducing government revenues and creating a no-new-taxes mindset. Then the resulting deficit creates a political environment where tough-thinking, civic-minded people like Love can propose deep cuts to federal programs because we supposedly can't afford them.

It's important to remember that before the beast was starved — before President George W. Bush's tax cuts, two unfunded and unneeded wars and the unfunded Medicare prescription benefit — that we could afford these things that make us a great country. When President Bill Clinton left office in 2001, we were paying for all these things and producing a hefty surplus with a booming economy.

After the recession, if we went back to the Clinton-era tax rates and stopped invading countries, we wouldn't need to cut like Love wants.

Love and her ilk want to cut for cutting's sake, but the American people actually want the programs she hates.

Neil Jackson

Park City