My Letter to the Editor

Someone named Ed Hirs wrote an editorial in the Houston Chronicle that I happened to see. Mr. Hirs seemed to be talking about a subject that he is not familiar with. I wrote the following letter to the editor. I would assume it will not be published, so in order for it to see the light of day, I'm posting it here. I am also including the offending editorial for you to enjoy.

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Dear Editor,

Professor Ed Hirs in his May 23 editorial "Trump 'trickle-down' tax plan would be a failure for Texas" makes several glaring assertions that just are not true. Prof. Hirs says that President Reagan's plan did not work in the 1980s, while every available policy metric solidly refutes that. And to go further, the same tax cut plan worked under President Coolidge in the 1920s and under President Kennedy via Lyndon Johnson (the tax plan had been pushed by Kennedy, after his death, Johnson got the bill passed). Tax rates came down, the economy grew and people went back to work, every time.

Professor Hirs would do well to look at the writing of fellow Houstonian, Professor Brian Domitrovic, who has chronicled the history of not only supply-side economics, but also a recent detailed history of the successful supply-side tax cuts of JFK in 1963-1964.

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