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Republicans want to bankrupt U.S. government

To the editor:

The Republican Party’s national leaders despise the federal government with its taxation and regulations that interfere with their business interests. As a result, they developed a financial strategy to “starve the government beast” in order to make it fail. Postal workers already know about this strategy.

The Republicans’ strategy of cutting taxes for the wealthy and increasing spending was first noticeable during the Reagan administration when the national debt tripled to over $3 trillion.

In 2001 when George W. Bush became president, he inherited a $5 trillion-plus national debt, but he also inherited a federal budget with a large surplus that was projected to make the United States debt free by 2011.

However, the “starve the government best strategy” reared its ugly head when tax cuts on income, capital gains and dividends for the wealthy became law in 2001 and 2003. Other taxpayers received one-time tax rebates.

Those tax cuts, along with spending for two wars, a Medicare prescription drug program and a Wall Street bailout, helped to nearly double the national debt when President Bush left office with the nation in The Great Recession, a growing unemployment rate of nearly 8 percent and a federal budget with a $1.3 trillion deficit.

President-elect Trump has promised to cut taxes that will add a projected $7 trillion to the current national debt. Will this “starve the government beast strategy” finally work to shut down the government by bankrupting America?

David L. Faust

Selinsgrove

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