<div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"><span style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif">On Fri, Oct 10, 2025 at 6:35 PM <</span><a href="mailto:spike@rainier66.com" target="_blank" style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif">spike@rainier66.com</a><span style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif">> wrote:</span></div></div><div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr"><br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><span style="font-size:13.5pt"><i style=""><font face="georgia, serif"><span class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">> </span>Before I go on, is there anything above you wish to dispute?</font></i></span></blockquote><div><br></div><div><font size="4" face="tahoma, sans-serif"><b>Yeah, a couple.<span class="gmail_default" style=""> </span> </b></font></div><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"> </span> <br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div lang="EN-US"><div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><b><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:Tahoma,sans-serif">>…Laffer theory? All Laffer said is that to maximize the amount of money the federal government receives <u>the tax rate should not be too high or too low<span>,</span></u> and <span>to </span>illustrate that point he drew a curve on a blackboard that is called <span>by some </span>the <span>"</span>Laffer curve<span>"</span> <span>but that </span>I call a keen grasp of the obvious.<span> </span>Laffer<span> never claimed to have derived the equation that produced that curve, and he certainly never came up with a figure of 20% which you mentioned, he never came up with a number at all… John K Clark</span></span></b></blockquote><p class="MsoNormal"><br></p></div><div><div><p class="MsoNormal"><span><span style="font-size:13.5pt"><i style=""><font face="georgia, serif"><span class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">> </span>History has established the approximately 20% number with the Reagan tax cuts of the 1980s.</font></i></span></span></p></div></div></div></blockquote><div><br></div><font size="4" face="tahoma, sans-serif"><b>History has established no such thing. <span class="gmail_default" style="">The </span>Reagan<span class="gmail_default" style=""> tax cuts affected the very rich far more than the very poor, overall he cut </span>income tax rates by about 25% over three years<span class="gmail_default" style="">, mainly by </span>reduc<span class="gmail_default" style="">ing</span> the top <span class="gmail_default" style="">tax</span> rate by <u>a lot</u>,<span class="gmail_default" style=""> </span>from 70% to <span class="gmail_default" style="">28</span>%<span class="gmail_default" style="">. It was called trickle down economics. And what does history tell us resulted from this? Well…  w</span>hen Reagan took office in 1981, the national debt was roughly $900 billion<span class="gmail_default" style="">, </span><span class="gmail_default" style="">w</span><span class="gmail_default" style="">hen</span> he left office in 1989, it had tripled to $2.7 trillion.<span class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"> </span><u>The debt as a percentage of GDP</u><span class="gmail_default" style="text-decoration-line:underline"> also</span><span class="gmail_default" style="text-decoration-line:underline"> </span><u>increased significantly during the Reagan years</u><span class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif"><u>,</u> it </span>increased from 26.2% in 1980 to 40.9% in 1988<span class="gmail_default" style="">.</span></b></font></div><div class="gmail_quote"><font size="4" face="tahoma, sans-serif"><b><span class="gmail_default" style=""><br></span></b></font></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><span style="font-size:13.5pt;font-family:Tahoma,sans-serif"><i><span class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif">> </span>I don’t see why interest on the current debt is placed under discretionary spending, but that is how economists treat it.</i></span></blockquote><div><br></div><div><font size="4" face="tahoma, sans-serif"><b>Spike, do you really think th<span class="gmail_default" style="">e US should just renege on paying the national debt and turn US savings bonds into junk bonds overnight?! Do you really think it would be OK for millions of American citizens who were conservative and saved for their retirement by putting their money and what they and everybody else assumed was the safest possible investment, US savings bonds, became penniless overnight?  And if we could just say we're not going to pay the national debt whenever we like with no negative consequences, then why on earth are you so worried about it?? </span></b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="tahoma, sans-serif"><b><span class="gmail_default" style=""><br></span></b></font></div><div><font size="4" face="tahoma, sans-serif"><b><span class="gmail_default" style="">John K Clark</span></b></font></div><div class="gmail_quote"><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div><div lang="EN-US"><div><p class="MsoNormal"><u></u> <u></u></p></div></div></div></blockquote></div></div>
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