ED MOSCOVITCH argues that tax increases don’t hurt economies (“Tax increases don’t harm economies,’’ Op-Ed, July 27). He points to the relative differences between the Clinton era - with higher taxes and higher employment, and the Bush era - with lower taxes and lower employment, and concludes that taxes help employment.
Let us not mistake correlation for causation; many other factors were at work between the two eras. A tech bubble emerged in the 1990s, which certainly added to employment, until we realized most of those jobs actually created no value for society. This realization only came at the dawn of the Bush era, which itself ended with another bubble bursting - dragging down employment numbers. Tax policy alone cannot account for either of these events.
To be fair, this argument cuts both ways, and does not prove that tax cuts magically spawn jobs. We must take into account other factors, such as the regulatory environment, government spending, and inflation, before drawing sweeping conclusions.
Ryan Safner
West Suffield, Conn. 
