<div dir="ltr"><div><font face="georgia,serif">Good Morning Visionaries:</font></div><div><font face="georgia,serif"></font><br></div><div><font face="georgia,serif">Dale Courtney, moderator of the site <a href="http://right-mind.us">right-mind.us</a>, has refused to publish this reply to his recent letter to the Daily News.</font></div><div><font face="georgia,serif"></font><br></div><div><font face="georgia,serif"><span style="text-align:left;color:rgb(29,33,41);text-transform:none;text-indent:0px;letter-spacing:normal;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;font-weight:400;text-decoration:none;word-spacing:0px;white-space:normal;word-wrap:break-word;background-color:transparent"><span style="word-wrap:break-word">Hi Dale:</span><br style="word-wrap:break-word"><br style="word-wrap:break-word"><span style="word-wrap:break-word">You seemed to have forgotten that I responded to you on this question earlier on a letter you wrote to the Lewiston Tribune on exactly the same topic. You posted the letter on your site and I responded with what I've posted below.</span></span></font></div><div><font face="georgia,serif"><span style="text-align:left;color:rgb(29,33,41);text-transform:none;text-indent:0px;letter-spacing:normal;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;font-weight:400;text-decoration:none;word-spacing:0px;white-space:normal;word-wrap:break-word;background-color:transparent"><span style="word-wrap:break-word"><br></span></span></font></div><div><font face="georgia,serif"><span style="text-align:left;color:rgb(29,33,41);text-transform:none;text-indent:0px;letter-spacing:normal;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;font-weight:400;text-decoration:none;word-spacing:0px;white-space:normal;word-wrap:break-word;background-color:transparent"><span style="word-wrap:break-word">If you did not forget about this exchange, then you are just being intellectually dishonest. Doug Wilson did this after our abortion debate in 1993, and that is when I began to lose respect for him. When anyone refuses to respond to points already made and pretends that they have not been made, then he has not only lost the debate but also his virtue.</span><br style="word-wrap:break-word"><br style="word-wrap:break-word"><span style="word-wrap:break-word">Now to the point: Obama inherited on-going debt from Bush, namely, huge amounts due to his tax cuts and unfunded wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. This is in stark contrast to the relatively small debt that Obama incurred beca</span></span><span style="text-align:left;color:rgb(29,33,41);text-transform:none;text-indent:0px;letter-spacing:normal;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;font-weight:400;text-decoration:none;word-spacing:0px;white-space:normal;word-wrap:break-word;background-color:transparent"><span style="word-wrap:break-word"><span style="word-wrap:break-word">use of the ACA and the stimulus, which nearly all economists say was a success.</span></span></span></font></div><div><span style="text-align:left;color:rgb(29,33,41);text-transform:none;text-indent:0px;letter-spacing:normal;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;font-weight:400;text-decoration:none;word-spacing:0px;white-space:normal;word-wrap:break-word;background-color:transparent"><span style="word-wrap:break-word"><span style="word-wrap:break-word"><font face="georgia,serif"><br></font></span></span></span></div><div><span style="text-align:left;color:rgb(29,33,41);text-transform:none;text-indent:0px;letter-spacing:normal;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;font-weight:400;text-decoration:none;word-spacing:0px;white-space:normal;word-wrap:break-word;background-color:transparent"><span style="word-wrap:break-word"><span style="word-wrap:break-word"></span></span></span><span style="text-align:left;color:rgb(29,33,41);text-transform:none;text-indent:0px;letter-spacing:normal;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;font-weight:400;text-decoration:none;word-spacing:0px;white-space:normal;word-wrap:break-word;background-color:transparent"><span style="word-wrap:break-word"><span style="margin:0px;color:black"><font face="georgia,serif">Using figures from
the Congressional Budget Office, the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities
has calculated the long-term effects of various elements of the national debt,
assuming that the Bush tax cuts are still in place.<span style="margin:0px"> (This was before the current tax bill.) </span>By 2019 those cuts will amount to $600
billion of the debt burden as opposed to $75 billion for Obama’s programs. We
will still be paying $320 billion for the Great Recession (due to a drop in tax
revenues) and $150 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.</font></span></span></span></div><span style="text-align:left;color:rgb(29,33,41);text-transform:none;text-indent:0px;letter-spacing:normal;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;font-weight:400;text-decoration:none;word-spacing:0px;white-space:normal;word-wrap:break-word;background-color:transparent"><span style="word-wrap:break-word"><div>

</div><div><b></b><i></i><u></u><strike></strike><font face="georgia,serif"></font><br style="word-wrap:break-word"></div></span></span><div><font face="georgia,serif"><span style="text-align:left;color:rgb(29,33,41);text-transform:none;text-indent:0px;letter-spacing:normal;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;font-weight:400;text-decoration:none;word-spacing:0px;white-space:normal;word-wrap:break-word;background-color:transparent">And once again, since you don't understand the connection, when a government runs deficits, it adds to its debt.  Clinton reduced the annual deficit until there was a surplus.  That, dear sir, reduced the national debt. Bush turned around and added to it. When Obama reduced the annual deficit from 10% to 3.2%, he was reducing the national debt.</span><br style="text-align:left;color:rgb(29,33,41);text-transform:none;text-indent:0px;letter-spacing:normal;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;font-weight:400;text-decoration:none;word-spacing:0px;white-space:normal;word-wrap:break-word;background-color:transparent"><br style="text-align:left;color:rgb(29,33,41);text-transform:none;text-indent:0px;letter-spacing:normal;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;font-weight:400;text-decoration:none;word-spacing:0px;white-space:normal;word-wrap:break-word;background-color:transparent"><span style="text-align:left;color:rgb(29,33,41);text-transform:none;text-indent:0px;letter-spacing:normal;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;font-weight:400;text-decoration:none;word-spacing:0px;white-space:normal;word-wrap:break-word;background-color:transparent">After nearly a year of Trump it is back up to 3.5% and it will go much higher with the new tax bill.  The result will be an increase in the national debt. This is what happened with the Reagan tax cuts, and he then had to raise taxes seven times, but that did not, primarily because of excessive defense spending, prevent the tripling of the national debt.</span><br style="text-align:left;color:rgb(29,33,41);text-transform:none;text-indent:0px;letter-spacing:normal;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;font-weight:400;text-decoration:none;word-spacing:0px;white-space:normal;word-wrap:break-word;background-color:transparent"><br style="text-align:left;color:rgb(29,33,41);text-transform:none;text-indent:0px;letter-spacing:normal;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;font-weight:400;text-decoration:none;word-spacing:0px;white-space:normal;word-wrap:break-word;background-color:transparent"><span style="text-align:left;color:rgb(29,33,41);text-transform:none;text-indent:0px;letter-spacing:normal;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;font-weight:400;text-decoration:none;word-spacing:0px;white-space:normal;word-wrap:break-word;background-color:transparent">By the way, the deficit for the Eurozone is now 1.3%, and their debt is now easing because of this. Greece is almost running a surplus with a deficit of only .8%.  Socialist Sweden is running a 1% surplus.</span><br style="text-align:left;color:rgb(29,33,41);text-transform:none;text-indent:0px;letter-spacing:normal;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;font-weight:400;text-decoration:none;word-spacing:0px;white-space:normal;word-wrap:break-word;background-color:transparent"><br style="text-align:left;color:rgb(29,33,41);text-transform:none;text-indent:0px;letter-spacing:normal;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;font-weight:400;text-decoration:none;word-spacing:0px;white-space:normal;word-wrap:break-word;background-color:transparent"><span style="text-align:left;color:rgb(29,33,41);text-transform:none;text-indent:0px;letter-spacing:normal;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;font-weight:400;text-decoration:none;word-spacing:0px;white-space:normal;word-wrap:break-word;background-color:transparent">Yours for honest debate (hopefully one that does not needed to be repeated),</span></font></div><div><span style="text-align:left;color:rgb(29,33,41);text-transform:none;text-indent:0px;letter-spacing:normal;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;font-weight:400;text-decoration:none;word-spacing:0px;white-space:normal;word-wrap:break-word;background-color:transparent"><font face="georgia,serif"></font><br></span></div><div><span style="text-align:left;color:rgb(29,33,41);text-transform:none;text-indent:0px;letter-spacing:normal;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;font-weight:400;text-decoration:none;word-spacing:0px;white-space:normal;word-wrap:break-word;background-color:transparent"><font face="georgia,serif">Nick</font></span></div><div><font face="georgia,serif"><br>-- </font><br></div><div class="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><div>   <div style="width:auto;height:auto">   <div> <div><div><font face="georgia,serif"></font><br></div></div></div></div></div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><font face="georgia,serif">A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in. <br><br>-Greek proverb</font></div><div><font face="georgia,serif"><br>
“Enlightenment is man’s emergence from his self-imposed immaturity. 
Immaturity is the inability to use one’s understanding without guidance 
from another. This immaturity is self- imposed when its cause lies not 
in lack of understanding, but in lack of resolve and courage to use it 
without guidance from another. Sapere Aude! ‘Have courage to use your 
own understand-ing!—that is the motto of enlightenment.<br>
<br>
--Immanuel Kant<br>
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