Voters are smart enough to grasp basic economics

Robert Gardner, Henderson

Thursday, Feb. 17, 2011 | 2:02 a.m.

I’m tired of elitists like Paul Krugman, a columnist for The New York Times. In Krugman’s column published in Tuesday’s Las Vegas Sun — “GOP on spending: Eat the future” — he does what he and his ilk always do: try to show how brilliant they are by calling voters uninformed (elitists’ way of calling us stupid).

Throughout his career, Krugman has tried to explain there are no problems that additional government spending cannot eradicate. After the $800-plus billion stimulus bombed, Krugman said it wasn’t big enough.

In the aforementioned column, Krugman says politicians should talk to us as adults: “They would then explain that solving that long-run problem requires two main things: reining in health care costs and, realistically, increasing taxes ...”

Well, unlike Krugman, voters are intelligent enough to understand that “Obamacare” will increase the cost of health care, not decrease it.

We are intelligent enough to understand that, when government confiscates more from the 50 percent of Americans who pay federal income taxes, there will be fewer jobs, not more.

We are intelligent enough to understand when the “rich” have their tax deduction reduced for charitable donations (as proposed in President Barack Obama’s 2012 budget), charities will receive less.

And, lastly, we are intelligent enough to know you can’t keep spending more than you earn.