Trump should tackle climate change
Recently, President Trump stood in front of Congress and applauded the spirit of Americans who withstood devastating natural disasters and horrible acts of violence in 2017. He boasted of the rise in the stock markets and new tax cuts. He emphasized “choice” and “pride” in America. Yet the greatest threat was left unmentioned: unharnessed generation of greenhouse emissions that silently blanket our planet, increasing its temperature, worsening droughts and wildfires, and raising sea levels that destroy coastal cities, threaten our loved ones and increase insurance costs. Promoting a clean-powered economy by signing an effective carbon pricing policy should have been on his agenda, not just rebuilding a collapsing infrastructure. Our hope rests with members of the House of Representatives. Ask our Atlanta-area Republican representatives to join the bipartisan Climate Solutions Caucus with Democrats to reunite America.
BOB JAMES, ATLANTA
Pols deceive public on deficits
A recent writer (“Trickle-down only widens rich-poor gap,” Readers Write, Jan. 26) argued that reduced taxes did not increase revenues and offered as proof that “the national debt almost tripled.” But revenues are revenues, and debt is a combination of revenues and spending. Revenues (due to reduced taxes) could actually increase but still be exceeded by a larger increase in spending. So, debt tells us nothing about whether revenues increased or not. Because the federal government has no balanced budget law, it typically finds ways to spend more than it takes in, so a budget deficit is predictable.
I’m not saying whether reduced taxes increase revenue or not; I’m just saying that citing a deficit is not an indicator of whether it happened or not. Politicians, who know better, typically refer to deficits to disparage tax reductions, but they are just trying to deceive an uninformed public.
MARK RIVKIN, DECATUR
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