The Republican House majority seems fixated on cutting spending including entitlements like social security and Medicare. They are not as sure about cutting military spending, which was some $50 million more this year than the administration asked for.

I have lived through many such Republican majorities from Reagan to Trump who handed out tax cuts and told us that increased economic growth due to those tax cuts would more than cover the lost revenue (e.g., Reaganomics). It did not. Instead, the national debt climbed (it is easy to Google the debt increase by president to see who raised it the most – Reagan by 186%!). Trump handed out his tax cuts and doubled the national debt as economic growth stalled at 2%.

Perhaps we should reverse those tax cuts, focus on tax policy such as calling all income, “income” including capital gains, and maybe even funding social security on all income. Now, it falls on the poor and the middle class. We could go so far as resurrecting the Bradly Gephardt proposed “flat tax,” which like term limits, has a lot of appeal to taxpayers. But simply cutting spending could have been done during the past Tepublican administration.

Dr. Gregory McIntire

East Lyme