Ted DeVol’s incoherent response to my letter (“Letter confuses ‘creating money’ with ‘income’”, published Oct. 7) is expected. He thinks that being in business automatically means he understands the economy. Being in business for 42 years does not make one understand how the economy works anymore than being a patient in a hospital makes one understand how a doctor operates. I know that it is common Republican orthodoxy now, lead by the President, that if a Republican states they know more about the military than generals or more about medicine than doctors, it must be true. But this is not how the real world works.
Words matter. Imagine as Mr. DeVol states, that the problem with my letter is that I am stuck on the definition of “create”. Well here are the Websters definition of three important words (not alternative Republican definitions) :
Create: To bring into existence.
Income: Money received for work (not including passive investments for this response).
Money: A medium of exchange
When someone generates income, they are trading their time (work) for a trading medium (money). Anyone who does this is generating income, regardless if they work for the government or a private employer. This is the factual definition of generating income, not Mr. DeVol’s made up definition.
Mr. DeVol continues his mischaracterizations by stating that President Bush had a surplus that President Obama used up,. This is false. Bush had a surplus budget because President Clinton handed him a large surplus. During the eight years of the Bush presidency, Bush squandered this surplus with tax cuts mainly for the wealthy and two dubious wars. The national debt and deficit shot through the roof. When Bush left office the national deficit was one trillion dollars a year. The national debt grew under President Obama because of the Bush tax cuts and wars that Obama inherited. President Obama actually cut the national deficit by 50 percent.
Once again, Mr. DeVol does not know the definition of words. A deficit is different than a debit. Here is an example, If you have a two member household bringing in $1000 a month in income but they spend $1500 a month, their deficit is $500. If the next month the household spends $1300, their deficit has been reduced but their debt has increased to $800. The debt and deficit are two different items.
If one member of this two member household leaves the workforce (let’s say they were each bringing in $500 a month in income) and their expenses stay the same, the deficit is going to increase exponentially. This is essentially what occurs when Republicans cut taxes (mainly for the wealthy)
Again, Mr. DeVol is entitled to his own opinions but not his own facts. Truth matters and the definition of words matter. This is accurate even if Trump tells us that there are “alternative facts” or if he tells us to believe what he says not what we see with our own eyes. Most Americans know that someone who has uttered more than 20,000 verified lies in 3.5 years has no credibility.
Chris Quiles
Enumclaw
