The latest political word of gloom and doom is called “the fiscal cliff.” We are warned that our taxes will rise and our prosperity will plummet. Wait a minute! Isn’t this “cliff” a plunge back to the fiscal days of Bill Clinton? Back to the days where our higher taxes led us to a balanced budget? Back to the days when I paid more but was actually more prosperous? Back when the company I used to work for was profitable? Back to the days when banks dealt with savings and loans rather than swaps and derivatives?
It looks to me like we actually jumped off a fiscal cliff in the election of 2000 and finally hit bottom in 2007. Now we are wallowing at the bottom saying, “What happened?” We are looking up at the cliff not down. We used to live in the land before “tax cuts,” where we actually paid for the things we wanted and sang “God Bless America” about an America that felt responsible for our fate rather than privileged that, as Dick Cheney told us, debt doesn’t count.
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We have lived in greener pastures and 12 years ago saw a mirage called “tax cuts” and jumped. Our real political challenge today is to get busy climbing back up the hill of responsibility for our country’s and our personal life. There are greener pastures. We have been there. We aren’t there now. But we can be if we get over this “tax cut” stupidity.
Peter Hyatt • Kirkwood