Tonya Alanez The Sun-Sentinel

November 17, 2010

Tonya Alanez
The Sun-Sentinel
200 E. Las Olas Blvd
Ft. Lauderdale, FL 33301

RE: Rainbow Soup – Maybe this time it will work. Some comments on your article on Rick Scott’s economic advisers in the Sun-Sentinel on 11/16/10.

Ms. Alanez,

I waited a day before commenting on your article about Rick Scott’s economic advisors. I waited because I was trying to soften the blow. Alas, there is no way around the fact that you are ignorant of the consequences, however unintentional, of trying to defy gravity when discussing economics. Be of good cheer. Your ignorance falls under the category of “vincible”. That means it can be cured.

You say that the “Laffer Curve” is the cause of deficit spending.

If you think that through you must, perforce, believe that umbrellas cause rain.

Here comes a nut that modern American Liberals find impossible to digest.

Deficit spending is caused by, you guessed it, spending more money than you have. It is not, repeat, not caused by taxing too little.

It may be an inconvenient truth but money is fungible. It doesn’t know what it is being spent on. Manatee suffrage, 5th trimester abortions, prisons, senior citizen python wrestling in lieu of death panels, deporting all Les Quebecois, banning Happy Meals, – the list is endless.

You quote a Professor Nissen as saying “Anybody who’s on the lower 60 or 70% of the economic spectrum, they’ll be losers.” [Lower end of the spectrum” – Is that ultra violet or sub rosa?]

How so?

52% of the people pay 100% of income taxes. 48% pay nothing.

The lower 48 benefit when the 52 hire them. Weren’t “they” the people for whom the term “shovel ready” was crafted?

Unless you have quarterly reprises of the decennial census it should be self evident, even to you, that the only way to make poor people richer is to make rich people richer.



The first proof of this is chronicled by Gibbon when he describes the Reign of the 5 Emperors 21 centuries ago.

A mistaken repeal of part of the Corn Laws in England in the 1830s led to an economic boom.

Tax cuts in 1921, 1961, 1981, and 2001 did what they were supposed to do. “Animal spirits” were released. Revenues soared. Jobs were created. The people prospered. Nobody will change Granny’s stuffing recipe next Thanksgiving unless Granny’s recipe is horrible.

Tell me, please, why, if Bush’s deficits were ‘bad’, how did Obama’s deficits become ‘good’?

In February, 2009 President Obama somewhat smarmily told a group of Republican Congressmen that there was an election and that he had won. Elections, like ideas, have consequences.

Rick Scott ran. Rick Scott won.

Since the people of Florida have chosen him to steer the ship would not Logic dictate that he be allowed to pick his crew?

I envy you as you begin your quest for economic knowledge. I hope it leads to economic wisdom.


Kevin Smith



PS – Minimum wage? Strong dollar v weak dollar? Send a SASE