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A rebuttal to Carter Bundy’s column, ‘Restoring Sanity’
Adam C. Cunyus
In response to your Sept. 28 column, Mr. Bundy, I do want to applaud your idea of administrative cuts in education and upper management cuts to state employees to ease some of the top-heaviness. I am in total agreement that “double dipping” absolutely must stop.
However, that’s where my agreement ends.
While I don’t necessarily disagree with combined reporting, I do find it comical that you choose to use Wal-Mart in your article as an example. Don’t you think your being the political and legislative director for the AFSCME in New Mexico might demonstrate a level of bias and animosity toward a company that fights so hard against unionization? If you wish to make rational, bipartisan policy suggestions on how to correct the economic woes of our state, perhaps you should check your predispositions at the door.
I understand yours is an opinion piece, but if you wish to be taken seriously you shouldn’t saturate your work with sarcasm and cynicism that moderates grow tired of hearing from progressives such as yourself.
In the interest of full disclosure, I am a 27-year-old registered Republican who disagrees with more than a few party planks. I am a lover of smaller government, less governmental intervention in private markets and I’m vehemently opposed to organized labor in our current times. If there were ever a model of inefficiency, today’s unions are perfect examples.
Also, I have a hard time understanding why you demean the wealthy individuals whose capital is the backbone of the economy. I came from modest means and harbor no ill will toward those who came before me and achieved. I definitely aspire to follow in their footsteps and become a self-made success.
The proponents of a progressive tax fail to understand that this system will continue to prop up the ultra-wealthy and stifle competition from up-and-comers like me. The added tax burden makes it increasingly difficult for individuals to compete (as either themselves or corporate entities) against corporate giants who encourage higher taxation because they can afford it and their competition cannot.
I get a sense that you feel people should be ashamed if they have achieved more than the average person. Since when did the spirit of competition and the desire to achieve become bastardized?
While there are very few who are born with a silver spoon (and still fewer who have the whole flatware set), most individuals who achieve wealth have sacrificed dearly to do so. Have you ever considered that those individuals (with the exception of the criminally fraudulent) have likely given their social and personal lives to achieve what they do?
So I ask, why the conspicuous demonization? With every generation comes a new class of entrepreneurs and innovators, and hence economic growth. That’s the beauty of free capital markets and interest; redistribution is merely a zero-sum game. Taxation and redistribution cannot create economic growth.
Do you not want people like me to have an easier path to success?
And finally, as for your belief that consumption is the primary economic driver, I judge that as an irresponsible position to take. On both a macro and micro scale, spending (while it can provide a short-lived boost) will wreak havoc on our individual, state and national fiscal health.
First on a micro scale: You say you support middle-class consumption, but you want more money in their pockets. Putting aside where this money’s going to come from, don’t you think one reason the middle class is in this precarious financial position is poor spending habits?
Shouldn’t we be encouraging middle class individuals to enroll in personal finance courses so as to better understand how to save, what debt is, how different financial instruments work and how much interest costs?
I put it to you that personal responsibility of the middle class in individual financial decisions would have gone a long way in lessening the “predatory lending practices” of the housing crisis. Didn’t anyone’s parents ever tell them, “If it’s too good to be true, it probably is?”
Secondly, on a macro scale: So called “economic stimulus” through spending further runs up our national and state debt and encourages poor monetary policy by printing or borrowing money the government plans to inject into the private sector. Aside from the issue of fraud in all government-funded projects, more dollars in the economy eventually increases inflation (decreases the valve of the dollar) and drives the prices for goods and services up even further.
So for entrepreneurs and innovators it’s yet another hurdle on their paths to success because the cost of entry into their particular businesses is that much higher.
So I pose to you, Mr. Bundy, one final question: Do you not want me (and others like me) to have an easier path to success? Or would you rather us succumb to governmental overburden, accept what’s been given to (and taken from) us and learn to like it?
Cunyus is a drilling engineer for Yates Petroleum Corporation. The views expressed in this column are his alone and do not necessarily reflect those of his employer.
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The author writes, “Have you ever considered that those individuals (with the exception of the criminally fraudulent) have likely given their social and personal lives to achieve what they do?”
Actually, I think that is the wrong thing to do. The family should come first. If taxes are progressively a higher percentage of income as that income increases, this may encourage more up-and-comers to stay home and settle for less income. So maybe it should be called a Focus on the Family tax?
After all, who really NEEDS to spend $500,000 on the perfect 5-carat diamond for an engagement ring?
(I checked this out online, just for fun, recently. Enter D color, FL clarity)
Hi Adam–
Thanks for the thoughtful and comprehensive email. I’ll try to address each point in order.
1. I’m glad we agree on a leaner government. That helps all of us, including the state employees who are good. Nothing is more frustrating than seeing a bloated bureaucracy and knowing that you don’t have the resources to hire more front-line workers to carry out the mission of an agency and to serve the public.
2. There’s a reason almost everyone who writes about combined reporting uses WM as an example: they’re the worst, or one of the worst, tax-avoiders in almost every state that doesn’t have combined reporting. If I weren’t allowed to comment on things that my job leads me to have an opinion on, I wouldn’t be able to write on much, including the points on which you agree with me. I’ve chosen this job (trust me, I’d be making considerably more had I stayed a lawyer) precisely because I almost always agree with the positions I’m asked to take. That’s like saying that you shouldn’t get to discuss energy issues because you work in the energy sector. I wouldn’t call your commenting on energy comical, so I’m not sure why’d you say that of me.
3. I’d appreciate your pointing out my “sarcasm and cynicism” in this piece (or in most others). I thought it was a fairly straightforward and reasoned argument. I understand that you, like most Republicans, won’t agree to any revenue increases, but that doesn’t make my piece cynical or sarcastic.
4. If unions are as inefficient as you say, then you shouldn’t blame them for so many things. I find it a little hard to believe that there are still people who don’t think workers should have things like health care, but hey, at least you’re going right down the line with the GOP on that one.
5. You’re making assumptions about me (and maybe unions) that we disparage the wealthy or private sector enterprise. Au contraire, mon ami! If it weren’t for the private sector doing well, the important things government does, like providing clean water, treating waste water, putting out fires, fighting crime, locking up criminals, paving roads, developing other infrastructure, creating and supporting a military, etc. wouldn’t be funded.
All I want is for everyone to pay their fair share. You apparently don’t think there’s much of any role for government, but government helps make your life better every single day from the time you wake up and get clean water in your shower to every meal you eat (you don’t think that places like China, with little government regulation of industry, has the same quality and safety of food or other consumer items, do you?)
6. Your characterization of progressive tax as slowing the up-and-comers is the exact opposite of what it does. It puts more on the very wealthy, while allowing those who are moving up to pay a lower marginal rate (by the way, millionaires and middle class pay the exact same amounts on their first dollar amounts–everyone does. That’s how a marginal tax rate works).
7. Further, we hardly have a progressive tax structure. If you count payroll and state/local taxes and fees, the top 20% pay roughly 30% of their total income, while the bottom 20% pay about 20% of their income. You have to be pretty cold to say that people making $15,000/year trying to be “up-and-comers” should bear an even larger burden while millionaires should pay even less.
8. I love that you’re with the far left in wanting less consumption! I’m even inclined to agree with you here. My point about consumption is in response to the conservative point of view that you can’t raise taxes in a recession because you slow consumption growth. If you’re concerned with slowing consumption growth, the last place you want cuts are with the middle class and lower-income workers, because they spend what they get. Millionaires don’t. And if you had your way and we really slowed consumption, what would happen to all the entrepreneurs for whom you claim to speak?
I like how many angles you approached this from, but I’d ask that you not read your own assumptions about “the left” or unions, into things you read. I don’t have anything against millionaires, or against the private sector. In fact, I want both to thrive. But I also want balance where every American has at least the opportunity to be a millionaire, and that means everyone getting the chance at a decent education and being healthy.
The private sector hasn’t, can’t, won’t, and never can provide that opportunity for everyone, because the money to be made is in providing those things to the wealthy and those who don’t need, say, health care. That’s why every single developed country except our sometimes ideologically rigid one recognizes an important role for government in health care. Heck, even your grandparents do, I virtually guarantee it. Ask them if they’d like to trade their Medicare for Blue Cross. Good luck with that!
I also have a problem when people expect something for nothing, and if we didn’t have things like infrastructure, a military, police, fire, emergency services, good roads, and dozens of other government-run programs, I suspect the millionaires would not only be hurt the most, they’d be the first to say something about it.
I’d like nothing more than you to be a tremendous success in whatever you do, but my question for you is: don’t you want that same opportunity for everyone else? And how do you propose to pay for the essentials that you and other conservatives use (just like the rest of us) every single day?