Grimes column: Bad economic math

All liberals believe that a few wealthy people can pay the bills for everyone else. Millard Grimes' eMonday column is a perfect example. Let's assume that all the facts and figures he quotes from Brookings Institute are correct. In his commentary he concludes that 115,000 people can balance the budget by paying $435 billion in extra taxes. He leads you to believe that this amounts to a 10 percent increase for them. In fact, if you divide $435 billion by 115,000 people, you get $3,782,610 in extra taxes for each of these people, which is 39.82% of their $9.5 million average income. Because they are already paying 34 to 35 percent of their income in taxes, their federal tax rate will have to go from 35% to 75%, which is more like a 114% increase in the rate. Millard is off by a factor of about 10, so he needs to go back to the drawing board where he'll find that there's just not enough wealthy people to go around.

By the way, he says that $435 billion is "a rounding adjustment" and we should somehow be happy that the current deficit for one year is only 3% of GDP. I'm more than alarmed by the fact that our cumulative deficit is about equal to the annual GDP, with no end in sight. Total expenses for our federal government are about 3.75 trillion and total revenues are about 3.3 trillion. Our debt is now about 5.5 times our income, and at the rate we're going, we'll be lucky to pay the interest on the debt.

Robert L. Griffin

Midland

The UN hobgoblin

Every year about this time Congressman Mike Rogers of Alabama uses up his postage allocation usually slamming some Democratic presidential policy. This year's letter was different. The letter, dated Oct. 16, touts Congressman Rogers' introduction of House Resolution 1205, the American Sovereignty Restoration Act.

Republicans have opposed U.S. participation in the United Nations since day one. The bill is a standard periodic rehash depicting the U.N. as a common enemy complete with the specter of black helicopters invading our defenseless borders and "them" forcibly taking away "our" national sovereignty. The bill again demands we pull out of the U.N.

His letter raises the threat the U.N. poses to our Second Amendment rights and U.S. businesses being subjected to "international environmental standards." Since Republicans oppose every gun control effort and the raising of environmental standards in our own country, their "international" argument is moot. What they oppose is the U.N trying to establish minimum worldwide standards to prevent U.S. companies from running ram shod over poorer countries.

These U.N. "demands" take the form of treaties. You either sign them or you don't. We have a long history of ignoring those issues with which we disagree and if businesses kept the jobs in this country, they wouldn't have that problem.

There is no doubt the U.N. wastes a lot of money, and since we are the richest country in the world, we pay more than our fair share. But isn't it easier to export American values from within than become, as President Bush coined in his 2002 "Axis of Evil" speech, a rogue nation?

James H. Centric

Phenix City

'Democratic' socialism?

Thanks to Bernie Sanders, one is now more likely to read something sensible about socialism in the U.S. media. Most U.S.-Americans still seem to have only a vague understanding of what the word means. Bernie often uses the term "democratic socialism" which to many probably sounds like an oxymoron.

To my way of thinking socialism is more democratic than capitalism, though both are economic policies whereas democracy refers to a political system. Socialism is most often defined as an economic system that involves a great deal of state control. The state can be democratic, oligarchic or dictatorial. Capitalism involves more private or individual control and ownership of the economic means of production, and thus easily allies itself with more individual control of the political system, which in the extreme is the definition of dictatorship.

Sanders uses "democratic socialism" to make it clear that he is not referring communism, i.e., where the state owns or controls virtually all the major means of production. Our own economy, and social system in general, is already within the democratic socialist model -- state-funded schools, highways, military, postal service, drug regulation, Social Security, Medicare and, more and more, health insurance as well. The main difference between the democratic socialism Sanders prefers and the privately empowered economy the U.S. has today is in the individual monopoly of wealth and the disparity between rich and poor that the U.S. tax code helps perpetuate. Democratic socialism would mainly mean a more progressive income tax, fewer subsidies for wealthy oligarchs and monopolistic corporations, and a more favorable treatment of labor unions leading to higher wages for the poor and middle class -- i.e., a more democratic system. The U.S. would then be likely to return to a more democratic electoral process, less under the control of billionaires.

John Studstill

Columbus

Not scared now

I was never scared of witches, zombies, and assorted goblins wandering around on Halloween. What really used to scare me was the meat industry.

This is the industry that mutilates, cages, and butchers billions of cows, pigs, and other feeling animals, that exposes thousands of undocumented workers to crippling workplace injuries at slave wages, that exploits farmers and ranchers by dictating wholesale prices, then jails those who document its abuses through unconstitutional "ag-gag"

laws. Now, that's really scary stuff.

But, instead of being scared, I decided to fight back by dropping animal products from my menu. I invite everyone to join me.

Dave Kephart

Columbus

This story was originally published October 28, 2015 at 1:43 PM with the headline "Grimes column: Bad economic math ."