Correspondence
Correspondence OVER-TAXED I WOULD LIKE TO RESPOND to David Brooks's assertion in "The Problem with K Street Conservatism" (June 24) that the stimulus package "contained almost no conservative...
...Of course I do...
...How that was finally done after January 20, 1981—and why it worked against a dying empire far more dangerous than has previously been understood—occupies the last third of my book, along with lessons for the war today...
...We ought to have won—and faster...
...Victory went to an America mobilized by Reagan and the new techniques and attitudes he brought with him...
...The manufacturing industry is growing at its fastest rate in two years and factory orders recently jumped...
...I offer no alternative to the Cold War record of swinging between heated overcommitment and giving up too soon...
...In sum, we are consistently and successfully advancing conservative, pro-growth tax policy...
...I challenge The Weekly Standard to bring formal charges, instead of journalistic huff 'n' puffery, to the attention of authorities in the Organization of American Historians or the American Historical Association...
...RALPH LUKER Atlanta, GA...
...But as a review of our tax history will tell you, a radical overhaul is unrealistic...
...The winners too often take victory for granted...
...DEREK LEEBAERT Washington, DC PRIDE BEFORE THE FALL AS THE "ONE RALPH LUKER" to whom THE SCRAPBOOK (July 1/July 8) refers, I repent of any contribution to its treasure of undue pride...
...Pangloss, but not that grim reckoner of cost, Dwight Eisenhower...
...So he should be...
...But we owe it to our dead, to those who suffered from so many lost opportunities, to do far better, to get it more nearly right this time...
...Our conservative values tell us that increasing output in our economy and creating wealth should be a high priority...
...More capital investment increases productivity, and greater productivity leads to greater wealth...
...At the King Papers Project we did what was necessary to ensure that the story appeared in a timely manner...
...Encouraging investment was the most sure-fire approach to reestablishing economic growth, and the stimulus bill was designed to do just that...
...The notion that the sacrifices were light, or strategy consistently correct, would do credit to Dr...
...We won...
...For your reviewer to conclude otherwise is jejune...
...The most serious problem with the economy in the summer and fall of 2001 was a dramatic drop in business investment...
...Meanwhile, the longer-term drive for fundamental tax reform is as strong as ever...
...The point of my article on the History News Network website was to ask for journalistic restraint while authorities at Emory University reach a conclusive judgment in the case of Michael Bellesiles...
...President Bush is sounding "a call to arms...
...I am sorry to say that he appears to understand little about the economics, tax policy, and politics of the bill...
...As for the two-year delay in the King papers project's revelation of plagiarism in Dr...
...Like the secular courts of the land, those authorities do not have powers of arrest or accusation...
...ALEX BRILL Senior Tax Economist House Ways & Means Committee Washington, DC REVIEWER REVIEWED THANKS FOR OFFERING a summary of my book The Fifty-Year Wound: The True Price of America's Cold War Victory in The Standard Reader (June 24...
...The stimulus bill lowered the effective rate of taxation on capital and thus was a step forward toward a tax system that promotes faster growth and a higher standard of living...
...King's dissertation mentioned in The Scrapbook, I would have hoped that The Weekly Standard would have had the courage to break the story...
...There is little return on just celebrating the last triumph, as conservatives usefully reminded us in the 1950s about the 1940s...
...The primary intention of the stimulus bill was to get the economy growing again by reversing the trend in investment...
...Correspondence OVER-TAXED I WOULD LIKE TO RESPOND to David Brooks's assertion in "The Problem with K Street Conservatism" (June 24) that the stimulus package "contained almost no conservative ideas . . . practically no ideas of any sort...
...We now must work to make accelerated depreciation permanent...
...While the "true believers" tout radicalism and call for an entirely new tax code and outline their various "ten year plans for reform," we have moved forward with incremental but significant improvements to our system and we will continue to make reforms...
...The Bush tax cut lowered individuals' tax rates to encourage work and saving...
...Those of us who worked for Ronald Reagan's election knew we could win the Cold War—but listening to Republicans in the 1970s as much as to Democratic elites, we were aware that it could well be lost by increasingly ineffective leadership...
...Even a casual analysis of recent economic indicators clearly shows that the economy is responding to the favorable tax policy we enacted...
...The use of recriminating about the past, said Churchill, is to enforce action in the present...
...But if he is rallying to the policies which cracked America's determination in the '60s, fawned on Mao, produced a ludicrous detente and arms control minuet with Moscow in the '70s, threw away victory (or a Cold War version thereof) in Vietnam, and indulged manipulation by European allies throughout, then today's crusade will be costlier still...
...It was to deal purposefully with the Soviet Union by cutting off the cash and technology, going on the ideological offensive, confronting Moscow's third-world clients, and, along the way, being prepared to bleed the Russians to their knees in an arms race...
...Brooks claimed the bill was just "pork" and "self-serving subsidies" and "narrowly focused favors...
...Most long struggles—look at the Civil War—are records of misjudgment and failure, redeemed if at all by triumph at the end...
...Unemployment has dipped back below 6 percent...
...The centerpiece of the bill was accelerated depreciation, which is known to be a highly effective tool for encouraging investment...
Vol. 7 • July 2002 • No. 42
