by Dr. Donna Campbell | October 29, 2010 | Opinion
“Amassing and exerting power in Washington for some 16 years now, lifelong politician Lloyd Doggett labeled me as extreme in a recent campaign mailing for my consideration of various ways to bring the nation back from the brink of insolvency.
“Working out ways to reform the tax code so Texans keep more, and DC takes less is not extreme.
“One potentially viable reform route is enacting a form of a ‘fair tax,’ which centers on sales instead of personal income. A driving tenet of this is eliminating all federal income and payroll taxes. Taxing individuals on items they choose to buy, rather than a forced taxation on income they earn would equate to more take-home pay for everyone, and would lower the overall tax outlay for many American families and businesses.
“Comprehensive tax reform would grow the economy and create jobs. Our current progressive income tax system is complicated, intrusive, and restricts economic growth. It penalizes production, drives up the costs of goods and services, and punishes workers by garnishing wages.
“The thought I’m giving to making the tax system more equitable is hardly extreme. Really, Lloyd Doggett mislabeling me as extreme on taxation reforms—having himself voted against eliminating the marriage tax penalty, and against tax cuts for middle-class families—is somewhere between ironic and un-self aware.
- Extreme is a national debt of nearly $14 trillion.
- Extreme is one in ten working Americans looking for a job.
- Extreme is putting Washington in charge of Texans’ healthcare.
- Extreme is parsing and spinning the bailouts you did and didn’t vote for, while shunting a key national defense responsibility like border security to the states.
- Extreme is fleeing from your own constituents at a town hall meeting when their views differed, and later calling the very people you’d invited to come out and hear you ‘an angry mob.’
- Extreme is withholding nearly a billion dollars in education money from Texas students and their teachers in a feeble attempt to prove a pointless political point.
“Little wonder Lloyd Doggett’s not running on his own record of trillion dollar deficits, auto bailouts, tax hikes on energy and manufacturing, and the Washington power grab of Texans’ health care decisions. One in ten Americans are out of work because of these failed policies that he, Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama pushed through. Why would Lloyd Doggett mislead you about tax reform? Because he believes he and his Washington allies can spend the money better than you can, even though you are the one who worked for it.
“We’ve seen what tax-and-spend has done for our district, state and nation. Now it’s time to take action—in this case, extreme action.”
- Donna Campbell, M.D.
