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Bailouts won't fix economy

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The following letters are in response to the Jan. 4 guest opinion "Bailouts won't fix economy" by Sen. Jon Kyl.

The guest opinion by Sen. Jon Kyl was outstanding and gives us hope that some in Washington truly understand economics.

As the Brits would say, "spot on."

Sen. Jon Kyl basically said the solution to the economy is to keep doing what they have been doing the last eight years.

Reaganomics doesn't work. "Trickle down" works if the folks at the top of the trickle machine aren't greedy and actually want to help those below them get some scraps. But the economy we are enduring is a result of the failed policies Kyl is touting: Lower taxes for the wealthy . . . not helping troubled industries . . . government is the problem, not the solution, et cetera.

While Sen. Jon Kyl presents the standard politician's soothing words, he sticks to the party line of cutting corporate taxes and not truly addressing the failure of the $700 billion Wall Street bailout. His tired refrain that taxing corporations causes them to move operations offshore is an oft- repeated misconception. They move offshore even if they paid no taxes.

Though Kyl and other "experts" and analysts have offered short-term dates upon which our current recession will end, they offer no realistic hard evidence to support those projections. No nation has ever risen or remained at the top without producing products to be sold. This country produces essentially nothing. We cannot rebuild our global financial standing with a resurgent service economy or by merely moving money around as on Wall Street.

Jon Kyl's economic views, as laid out in his guest opinion, sadly demonstrate that the conservative orthodoxy of Herbert Hoover is alive and well in 2009. Kyl seems to be as out of touch with the problems faced by real people today as was Hoover 76 years ago.

Sen. Jon Kyl continues to promote an ideology of tax cuts and deregulation that has failed both the nation and nearly all Americans. After income taxes were raised during the first year of the Clinton presidency, in 1993, the nation went on to create 2.1 million new additional jobs per year. By his own admission, Kyl tells us that after the Bush administration cut taxes during its first year in office, barely 1 million new jobs were created per year.

The income of the average American family rose during the Clinton years, it declined during the Bush years. And while the federal budget went from deep deficits to solid surpluses in the Clinton years, it went from solid surpluses to deep deficits in the Bush years.

Exactly what in the Bush economic record, following the tax cuts, is there left for Kyl to praise? By continuing to promote policies that the facts have discredited, he shows us that he is representing an ideology rather than the actual interests of Arizonans and the nation.

Sen. Jon Kyl, advocates for the Republican mantra of lower taxes, no unions and more support for the rich corporations. But lower taxes for whom? His lower capital-gains taxes certainly will not help the middle class. Most of us have experienced huge losses in our 401(k) or stock investments. The "death" (estate) taxes already exempt everyone but the very rich.

The Republican economic model of "supply-side" or "trickle-down" economics does not work. This model favors unregulated industry and the rich over the working/middle class. Economic performance/recessions are recorded in Federal Reserve data.

Kyl implies that recessions just happen, but there are three Democratic administrations since 1950 that prove otherwise.