Obama plan's foes in GOP might look at their own failures

RE "OBAMA drives US toward socialism, GOP says" (Page A2, Feb. 28): So, Representative John Boehner calls the White House budget proposal and economic stimulus plan "one big down payment on a new American socialist experiment"? Boehner and other like-minded Republicans have a serious case of selective amnesia. If this is a new American socialist experiment, it is because the old American experiment has failed us miserably. The experiment of the last eight years resulted in running up the greatest government deficit in history, billions of dollars in subsidies to agribusiness and other needy corporations, billions in no-strings bank bailouts pushed through by previous Treasury secretary Henry Paulson, and an unpopular, unnecessary war funded separately from the federal budget to hide its true cost from the American public.

Boehner would be wise to study our history and make some constructive proposals in Congress, or else become irrelevant in less than two years. He might also explain why the corporate subsidies of the Republican era are not a form of socialism. I will not lie awake nights waiting for his response.

Boehner also needs to realize that there is no such thing as pure democracy anymore, just as pure communism is no longer practiced.

Ben Myers
Harvard

IN AN attempt to revive their party, a number of Republican strategists have suggested a return to the philosophical tenets of the Reagan White House. Actually, since Jan. 20 the vast majority of the Republican members of Congress have been doing just that. Instead of President Reagan's philosophy however, they've been adhering to Nancy Reagan's: Just say no.

Tom Hall
Marlborough

TOM COSGROVE ("The 2 percent solution," Op-ed, March 2) advocates changing our state constitution so that those who make at least $250,000 could be taxed a little more in tough times. He writes, "The constitution currently mandates that the state tax all citizens, regardless of income, at the same rate," and argues that progressive taxation is "the fairest way to distribute the tax burden." Since the wealthiest are a quiet minority, they are being discriminated against. We can call it wealth redistribution, or proclaim it is fair, but at its core it is discrimination. What would happen if we proposed a higher tax for women, or blacks, or gays? The outcry would be enormous. Just because someone makes more money doesn't mean they should pay more than those who don't. Do they drive more on the roads or use the educational system more?

The wealthy minority who are being targeted by President Obama's proposed budget are being treated unfairly. There will be a backlash. Charitable spending, entrepreneurialism, and small-business hiring will be affected.

Call these moves that Cosgrove wants for the state and the president wants to implement for the country what they are: discrimination in its purest form.

Kevin A. Richardson II
Beverly

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