This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2012, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
I don't get the Republican intransigence against raising the tax rate for the top 2 percent. Especially when studies show that tax increases won't hurt the economy, especially in comparison to drastic budget cuts, which would send us back into a recession.
When President George W. Bush decided to spend the budget surplus he inherited from President Bill Clinton on lower taxes, he argued that it would fuel economic growth. We ended up instead with huge deficits.
It's one thing to cut tax rates when you have a surplus; it's quite another to argue against restoring the rates only on the wealthiest 2 percent when you have a deficit.
Bush's argument for tax cuts didn't pan out. That Republicans now won't admit that, and are refusing to return to levels that were actually reducing our national debt, shows that they are less concerned about the debt than they are in forcing back-door cuts in the size of government by starving it of funds.
That's a position voters rejected when they re-elected President Barack Obama. Quit the brinkmanship and start governing!
Karsten Müller
Fruit Heights