by Rick Lowe
If you followed the recent United States presidential election campaign you will no doubt remember the many calls for increasing taxes and continuing government deficits and borrowing.
Now maybe I'm wrong with my reading of history but former US president Bill Clinton, like John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan before him saw the wisdom in not stifling government revenues and economic growth by over burdening Americans with excessive taxation.
While he did raise the top tax rate to 36.9% from 31% he also reduced government spending from 22% to 18% of GDP. Not only that he reformed welfare and reduced the Capital Gains tax rate from 20% to 15%.
Economic Growth is key to lifting more people out of poverty and there is a danger with increasing taxation to levels that cause less investment. It has happened before.
As former US President John F. Kennedy said in the 1963 Economic Report of the President:
"Yet many taxpayers seemed prepared to deny the nation the fruits of tax reduction because they question the financial soundness of reducing taxes when the federal budget is already in deficit. Let me make clear why, in today's economy, fiscal prudence and responsibility call for tax reduction even if it temporarily enlarged the federal deficit – why reducing taxes is the best way open to us to increase revenues."
He was assassinated before he would see his ideas come to fruition, but he was spot on.
So if lower taxes increase government revenue and economic growth, why wouldn't raising taxes cause the opposite effect? Here again, history is a good teacher, not only with Kennedy, but with Reagan and Clinton too.
I'm sure there are no easy answers, but the danger of causing the opposite of what he intends is something Mr. Obama should consider. Maybe Bill Clinton's approach to economic growth is worth emulating?
What can I say? The Best US President of recent times and one of my three ‘Heroes’ in life due to his unparalleled knowledge of Government, one of the necessary pillars of society …
What can I say?? This is a man that was convicted of lying under oath committing perjury, was impeached as a sitting President and was debarred or disqualified from practicing law after leaving the White House.. Lets not mention the over a dozen woman whose lives were abused then totally destroyed by his political machine.. Since when has lying to the American people and decadent and immoral behavior become a pillar of society.. One man’s respect is another man’s disdain..
Hi Tradewinds, if the point had not eluded you, perhaps would have prefaced your question about William J. (Bill) Clinton with ‘knowledge of Government’, which is what I said and in which case your revised question would have been:
“Since when has ‘knowledge of Government’ become a pillar of society?” To which I would answer, it has always been, ever since mankind left the caves to create societies.
As for the next two pillars, to my mind, they are ‘knowledge of self/the individual’ and ‘knowledge of organisations’?
If you are wondering who I think epitomises these two kinds of knowledge, here we go: for the second (self-knowledge), there can be only one person – Nelson R. Mandela; and for the third (knowledge of organisations), again, only one person in my mind, Peter F. Drucker.
Well said S3S.. Nelson R. Mandela and Peter F. Drucker are principled and noble men making outstanding contributions to mankind and their respective fields of endeavor.. To put Bill Clinton in the same company as Mendela and Drucker is a stretch at best.. Truth and morality character still should count..