Let's move our nation forward!

This letter made such sense in a simple fashion, it says it all:

There is considerable empirical evidence that the main way to solve our nation’s job crisis is for the government to spend money to increase both public- and private-sector jobs. More teachers, policemen, firemen, road and bridge-builders, insulation and solar panel installers, etc. provide jobs both directly and indirectly. The wages these people receive have a large multiplier effect through the things these people purchase, the products their job requires, and the increased taxes they pay.

There is also considerable empirical evidence that cutting the taxes of the wealthy has a much smaller multiplier effect. Basically, the extra funds these folks have if their taxes are lower does increase their investment in businesses – but not very much. Not nearly as much as the increase in demand produced by directly increasing employment.

These are facts, not opinions.

Reasonable people in the Republican Party know this. But their party has been overwhelmed by its know-nothing branch. The reasonable Republicans in Congress are held hostage: they have to vote for policies that harm our country or they will lose the support of their base. This base comprises about 15% of the voting public - people who do not understand anything at all about the economy, whose views on many issues derive from an incorrect understanding of 18th and 19th century values and history, who consider evolution and global warming to be liberal plots. In the 21st century, it is disastrous to allow these people to dictate policy.

But they do. Republicans – including our own Scott Brown – are preventing even a discussion of President Obama’s plan to increase good jobs. Without it, the economy has little chance of improving.

Please, you reasonable Republicans out there: Tell Scott Brown and his colleagues that they ought to place a higher priority on the interests of our country than on trying to discredit our President. Help us to escape the economic doldrums through an approach that we know will succeed – government spending to increase jobs. Don’t listen to your know-nothings.


Donald Chauls