A popular definition of insanity is repeating the same destructive behavior over and over again expecting different results. Front page news in today’s Olean Times Herald revealed that President Bush is proposing an economic stimulus package that includes $150 billion in tax cuts. Presidents since Ronald Reagan have been proposing that “trickle down economics” will stimulate economies. We’ve had so much trickling down here in the United States that we should be in a state of over stimulation by now.
If I were president or even in Congress I’d propose abolishing the Department of Defense, which is more akin to it’s original name, The War Department. The only thing we’re defending in this country anymore is the military industrial complex. We the people are not going to gain anything from this or any tax cut proposed by this or any other president. Cutting taxes will not slow the rate of growth in arms and armaments, but it will hurt the poor. It will also not help the economy in general. It will help some corporations but it really won’t stimulate Main Street.
America and Americans will continue to languish in a recession that the president or at least his advisers won’t own up to. Our moral bankruptcy in this country is not in Hollywood, but instead in Washington and state houses around the country that repeat this tired rhetoric of trickle down economics. Dr. King nailed it over forty years ago when he said.
A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.