Tax phobia destructive

Congratulations, Gary Crooks, on your column “Grover pulls GOP strings”(June 12). Norquist is leading Republicans by the nose. I have followed the antitax rhetoric of Norquist and his minions for 30 years. Norquist and the ranting Gingrich, “Democrats can’t be good Americans,” and Reagan, “government is not the solution to problems, it is the problem,” led me to completely abandon voting for Republicans.

Crooks is correct on Eisenhower. As my wife and I walked the grounds of Ike’s Kansas home, reading most of his quotes, we realized that Ike would roll over in his grave at the antics of the new crop of Republicans.

Republicans can never get over the Kennedy tax cuts that led to a spurt in the economy. What they never mention is that Kennedy cut the top income bracket from around 90 percent to 70 percent. Reagan took the top bracket from the 70 percent to the mid-30 percent and from that time we have had deficit spending except for a short time under Clinton, when he pushed through, in Hannity’s words, “the largest tax increase in the history of the world.”

Government doesn’t work? Vote for the new conservatism and they’ll prove it.

Ted Shepard

Spokane Valley