Michael Carman’s letter, Attacks on Obama do not correctly reflect reality (SN 1/29) is a bit of fantasy of its own.
Carman mentions the Great Depression came after a time of economic conservatism, which is completely false. Former President Herbert Hoover was president before the Depression and, despite being a Republican, he was no conservative. As commerce secretary under Calvin Coolidge, Hoover pressed for more regulation and as president passed many tariffs. Not to mention Hoover enacted the single largest peacetime tax increase in American history in 1932, which is what sparked the Great Depression. Not only that, but Hoover increased government spending by 50 percent from 1929 to 1932. Hoover was even praised by John Maynard Keynes after a World War I peace conference, the same guy behind Keynesian economics, which Carman praises.
Former President Thomas Jefferson must be rolling over in his grave at Carman’s assertion that somehow the redistribution of wealth, a socialist principle, is vital to democracy. Jefferson said it best himself, “To take from one, because it is thought his own industry and that of his fathers has acquired too much, in order to spare others, who, or whose fathers, have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association, the guarantee of everyone the free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it.”
America today needs to follow the ideas of another Coolidge Cabinet member, Andrew Mellon, who, as treasury secretary, lowered taxes for everybody leading to 1 percent unemployment. This is a number we would kill to have today.
Jacob Bodnar
media arts and technology freshman
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