Tax cuts for the rich cut our nation off at its knees

By Cesar Lumba, Las Vegas

Friday, Sept. 25, 2015 | 2 a.m.

The writer of the letter “Politicians carry blame for wrongs” (Las Vegas Sun, May 17) suggests police brutality arises more frequently in black communities because people there have no jobs and are constantly getting in trouble with the law. He then blames high tax rates that discourage investments in American cities. Third, he says high tax rates are Democrats’ fault.

Our taxes were sky-high shortly after World War II because of that war and the lingering effects of the Great Depression.

President John F. Kennedy reduced the highest tax rate from 91 percent to 70 percent, without blowing a hole in the federal budget. Reagan reduced it further, to 39.6 percent, then Bush reduced it 35 percent. Reagan’s tax reductions quadrupled the national debt, while Bush’s doubled the $5.5 trillion national debt to more than $11 trillion.

Did the tax reductions result in increased investments in our cities that gave jobs to poor black youth?

The so-called job creators did increase their investments, but they invested in China and other places and created jobs there. Without the Reagan and Bush tax cuts, the government might have had more money to spend on infrastructure projects and maintenance, which would have tended to rebuild and maintain black communities, thereby creating prosperity in those areas.

Reagan and Bush blew up our national debt so that now we can’t afford to repair our roads and bridges, and we can’t make investments that will bring us on par with our allies. We can hardly afford to live up to our commitments to our allies. China is dismissing us as a has-been country and keeps threatening to call the more than $1 trillion debt we owe them.

It’s all because Americans stopped supporting our government by clamoring for more tax cuts for the rich, especially the billionaires who are putting Republican politicians in their pockets. Disgusting!