March 22, 2013 by The Sumter Item

OPINION THE ITEM

FRIDAY, MARCH 22, 2013 To submit a letter to the editor, e-mail letters@theitem.com

The 50 percent solution: Everyone gets something W

ASHINGTON — The proposition that entitlement curbs are the key to maintaining national solvency is widely accepted, though not by many congressional Democrats. President Obama, however, has endorsed it on various occasions. And he could make it happen. If he wants. I remain skeptical that he does. But national solvency is important enough to test this proposition at least once more. The obstacle is Obama’s current position that entitlement cuts Charles must be “balKRAUTHAMMER anced” with new revenue from closing loopholes. Republicans are adamantly opposed. No more revenues, Mr. President. You got your tax hike on Jan. 1. Is there a solution? Yes: tax reform with a twist. The problem begins with definitions. By tax reform, Obama means eliminating deductions, exclusions, credits of various kinds with all the

money going to the Treasury. That’s radically new. The historic 1986 Reagan-O’Neill tax reform closed loopholes with no extra money going to the Treasury. The new revenue went directly back to the citizenry in the form of lower tax rates. This is called revenue neutrality. The idea is that tax reform is a way not to fatten the Treasury but to clean the tax code. It means eliminating special-interest favors and behavior-altering deductions that create waste and inefficiency by inducing tax-preferred rather than market-oriented economic activity. And it introduces fairness by removing breaks and payoffs for which only the rich can afford to lobby. As a final bonus, tax reform’s lower rates spur economic growth. A unique winwin-win: efficiency, fairness, growth. Obama’s own SimpsonBowles deficit-reduction commission offered a variant. First, it identified an astonishing $1.1 trillion per year of these “tax expenditures.” That’s more than $11 trillion in a decade. In one scenario, it

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knocked them all out and lowered marginal tax rates to just three brackets of 8 percent, 14 percent and 23 percent. But here’s the twist. Using the full $1.1 trillion annually of newly redeemed “loophole” revenue, Simpson-Bowles could have dropped the rates a bit below 23 percent. But instead it left some of that money in the Treasury, an average of almost $100 billion a year, or about $1 trillion over a decade. It was a reasonable compromise, so reasonable that even the Senate’s most fierce spending hawk, commission member Tom Coburn, signed on. Now, Simpson-Bowles is not on the table but it could be a model. Obama’s “tax reform” would send 100 percent of the revenue to the Treasury. Reagan-O’Neill sent zero percent. Simpson-Bowles fell somewhere in between. So should any grand compromise. Before deciding exactly where to locate that compromise, however, we have to decide which deductions to cut, yielding how much revenue.

The bad news is that, given all the lobbying and haggling this would occasion, it could take years to work out. The good news is the formula proposed by Harvard economist Martin Feldstein. Before even picking and choosing which deductions should remain permissible, it simply allows no one to reduce his tax bill by more than 2 percent by using any or all of the deductions and loopholes in the current tax code (except charitable contributions). There should, of course, be separate negotiations over which of the hundreds, thousands, of loopholes/deductions should be tossed out as corrupt or counterproductive rent-seeking. But the 2 percent ceiling means that we don’t have to wait until full tax reform — because the Feldstein formula significantly and immediately reduces the impact of all the loopholes. Feldstein calculates that his tax reform would yield $2.1 trillion in new revenue over a decade. Now we can cut the pie. Obama wants the govern-

Precinct reorganization will help us take our country back

ERIC GANN Sumter

Republican leaders can’t see ‘forest before the trees’ I am responding to the Republicanled S.C. House of Representatives who are denying health care expansion and job creation. he Republicans in this state are walking a ine and thin line of holding to conservative and southern conservation principles of Jim Crow politics and radical discrimination practices. How did the Republican Leadership in the SC State House and our very own Rep. Murrell Smith who is the Ways and Means committee chairperson came to this unfounded conclusion? Why do the Republicans hate the president of United States who is trying to implement a health care system that was created by a former Republi-

N.G. OSTEEN 1843-1936 The Watchman and Southron

SANDRA SELLAR Sumter

Thank you to panelists for Save Our Children Forum

can governor and loser of the presidential election in 2012 whose name needs to remain nameless? Sorry, it was Gov. Mitt Romney. Rep. Murrell Smith is a noticeable and respected person in the Sumter community, but it seems he and his Republican friends do not like their fellow South Carolinians receiving afordable and much-needed health care and not to mention jobs that will come in the form of setting up this exchange. Maybe it is because Gov. Haley, Rep. Murrell Smith and other Republicans in the Statehouse do not believe in the Bible or live in the Bible Belt State. We know they live here, but maybe, there are reading another Bible that does not reference Jesus Christ helping the blind, deaf, poor, lame, sick, etc. his is a very hypocritical vote and stands by Rep. Murrell Smith, which he stated, “We need to deal with that before we deal with expansion,”meaning, the $2.4 million funding gap that currently covers 1 million people on the South Carolina Medicaid Program. If you really want to ill in the gap or deal with Medicaid funding problems, take the 11 billion dollars, which (South Carolina will be third highest among all states receiving these funds). his is a no brainer, but these people (Republican Leaders in this state like Rep. Smith) don’t have

reasonable logical cognitive capabilities to see “the forest before the trees.” I agree with Rep. David Weeks who is an honorable man and very reasonable and common sense thinker when he stated, “his is a deining moment and we cannot aford not to do this.” TRAVIS HOLMES Sumter

Editor’s note: Because this letter exceeded the 350-word length as stated in our Editorial Page Policies which appears regularly on this page, it can be read in its entirety under Opinion on he Item’s website, www.theitem. com.

Check your bank statements because president wants money Deinition of Eminent Domain: he concept in which the state can use the power of common law to seize a citizen’s private property without their consent. In order to help stabilize Greece, their government has attached the bank accounts of the people and took 10 percent of all their money. Some banks have closed temporarily and no one even has access to the money that they have left. As I said in a previous letter, our government wants us to have direct deposit for Social Security, veterans’ beneits and other federal programs.

H.G. OSTEEN 1870-1955 Founder, The Item

H.D. OSTEEN 1904-1987 The Item

We, the members of the Social Action Committee of the Sumter Alumnae Chapter of Delta Sigma heta Sorority Inc., would like to take this opportunity to thank the individuals listed below for serving as panelists on our irst Save Our Children Forum: Ernest “Chip” Finney III — Solicitor for 3rd Circuit of SC Anthony Dennis — Sumter County Sherif Minister Maggie Richardson — Victim’s Mother Soror Willie Mae hompson — Prevention Specialist Soror Sharmane Anderson — Central Regional FDA Inspector Michelle Eason — Lakewood High School student William Richburg — Sumter High School student Rudolph Wheeler — Morris College Program Director for “Call Me Mister” and Upward Bound Julia Nelson, Mayor of Manning, served as moderator Each of you unselishly shared time from your busy schedules on a Saturday afternoon. You rendered an invaluable service to the community sharing your expertise by answering the questions of both the youth and parents. Your eforts made all the difference in the success of our program. Again, thanks! ABIGAIL BUSBY-WEBB Chapter President MARGARET WALKER Chapter Vice-President and Social Action Committee Chair Sumter Alumnae Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. Sumter

HUBERT D. OSTEEN JR. | EDITOR AND CHAIRMAN

Founded October 15, 1894 20 N. Magnolia St. Sumter, SC 29150

Charles Krauthammer’s email address is letters@ charleskrauthammer.com.

his will give them access to our bank accounts. Our current administration says they need more money to spend. hey have already raised our taxes twice so far this year, once in January, plus the Obamacare taxes that are now in efect. hey now want to raise taxes again, claiming that’s not enough. If Obama can’t get more in taxes from us, what makes you think he may not take the same approach as Greece? He wants money, and based on all the other secretive transactions he has done, maybe you should be checking your bank statements a little closer. After all, he does seem to be a president who gets what he wants, one way or another. his would be called “inancial” eminent domain.

As most of you know the GOP is going through its precinct reorganization this Saturday at multiple locations and if you voted Republican in the last primary you are highly encouraged to participate and even become a delegate to the county convention and possibly be elected to the state convention. This reorganization is more important though than most know. While we have gained some Republican seats, we lost two positions that South Carolina needed to win, the District 35 Senate race and the presidential race. While we maintain a majority at the state level and in the U.S. House of Representatives, we have allowed our ethics to be challenged here at home with a senator that does not have the liberties of South Carolinians and Sumter as a priority. In addition, we have a president that is attempting to dismantle the main product of our freedom, the Constitution. For whatever reason, Republican voters did not participate in last year’s election, but we must become active again and take our nation back. Precinct reorganization is the first step to taking our great nation back to exceptionalism. I pray that we have a great turnout this Saturday and for the return of individual prosperity to our great city, county, state and republic.

ment to keep it all. The GOP wants to give it all back to reduce tax rates. Let’s be Solomonic. Divide the revenue in half — 50 percent to the Treasury for reducing debt, 50 percent to the citizenry for reducing rates. That’s roughly $1 trillion each. Everybody gets something. Republicans unexpectedly get a rate cut, minor but symbolic after having had to swallow the fiscal-cliff rate hike. The country gets the first significant tax reform in a quarter century. Obama gets $1 trillion worth of “balance,” his price for real entitlement reform. And if he turns out to be serious about that, we get the Holy Grail — tax and entitlement reform all at once. Which means a deal that manages to simultaneously promote efficiency, fairness, growth, debt reduction and a return to national solvency. In other words, the best deal since the Louisiana Purchase.

MARGARET W. OSTEEN 1908-1996 The Item

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