Dear Editor,
In the April 23 ET, Michael Donihe expresses concern about government spending, regulations and taxes. I’m sure he felt the same concern during the previous administration, which had a deficit of more than a hundred billion dollars a year every year for eight years. He should keep in mind that most federal spending pays people’s salaries, and that without the money ETSU and ETSU students get from the federal government, this university would have to close its doors.
He quotes Libertarian economist Henry Hazlitt on the mounting burden of taxation. I wish he had supplied a source for the quote – none of the many Web pages I searched that use this quote say what book it was in. My guess is that Hazlitt wrote it in the 1950s or 1960s, when the top U.S. income tax rate was 95 percent (as it was in Britain, thus the Beatles song “Mr Taxman,” “Nineteen for you and one for me”).
Today tax rates are much lower, and the U.S. has one of the lowest income taxes in the world. My own taxes this year are lower than they were last year, and I suspect the same is true for Mr. Donihe.
He is also concerned about government regulation. He will be glad to know that in his first 100 days in office, President Obama has removed government regulations against stem-cell research, against advising women overseas about abortion and against distribution of medical marijuana.
In these as in other areas, Americans not only have more freedom than ever before in history, but also more freedom than citizens of any other nation except the Netherlands.
He is worried that we do not have a vibrant economy. He will be relieved to learn that even with the current depression, America has by far the strongest economy in the world. Our gross domestic product is almost three times that of the runner-up, Japan, and is greater than the combined GDP of every country in the world outside of the U.S. and the European Union.
My advice to Mr. Donihe is to go outside and look around. The sun is shining. The birds are singing. His security is greater, his taxes lower, his education better and his freedom more extensive than just about anywhere else in the world. I suspect he’s been spending too much time indoors.
-Rick Norwood

Author