Mike Thayer gives history professor Colin Gordon a history lesson

Colin Gordon is a history professor at the University of Iowa.  He teaches history, but apparently doesn't know it.

He has a guest opinion piece in the Iowa City DePressed Citizen today (see related story), the topic is the deficit.  Despite a spending deficit of $830 billion for just the first six months of fiscal 2011 and a national debt of $14.26 TRILLION, nutty Professor Gordon would have you believe that this country has a revenue problem, not a spending problem.  Really?

Federal spending has increased 80% in the last two+ years and this nutty professor says we have a revenue problem, not a spending problem.  To *support* (cough) his silly notion, he claims without substance that corporate tax rates and income tax rates are at all time lows.

This guy is a history professor right?

A simple search on Google shows us that the current federal corporate tax rate is 35%.  When you average in a state corporate tax rate, you're talking a 39+ percent tax rate.  HISTORY tells us that the corporate tax rate in the U.S. has been lower, much lower in fact.  The Tax Reform Act of 1986, the Reagan era, closed tens of billions of dollars in corporate loopholes, so that by 1988, the overall effective corporate federal tax rate for large corporations was at 26.5 percent.

And then there's the nutty professor's claim on income tax rates being at all time lows.  HISTORICAL records show that income tax rates have indeed been lower and it's recent history too.  Does the professor even know how to use Google?  How about a text book not written by a liberal?  The guy teaches history.....  And he got this history wrong.  Way wrong.  The top marginal income tax rate today is 35%.  In 1988, 1989 and 1990, the top marginal income tax rate was 28%

The professor might also recall - but will most likely fail to acknowledge - that Reagan fiscal policy brought us one of the longest peacetime economic expansions in U.S. history.  Reagan policy gave us lower taxes and controlled spending.  Key word, 'controlled.'  The federal deficit fell from 6% of GDP in 1983 to 3.2% of GDP in 1987. The federal deficit in Reagan's final budget fell to 2.8% of GDP. The rate of growth in federal spending fell from 4% under Jimmy Carter to 2.5% under Ronald Reagan.

In sharp contrast, Obama era federal deficit as a percent of GDP:   10%

So here's a snapshot comparison, common sense vs. the professor's We (as in a liberal government) need to tax more so we can spend more mentality:

Reagan era:  Lower income tax rates + lower corporate tax rates + controlled spending = longest peacetime economic growth in U.S. history.  No revenue problem and no spending problem like what we have today.

Obama era:   Higher income tax rates + higher corporate tax rates + UNCONTROLLED spending = SOUR economy, high unemployment, inflation on the rise, the U.S. dollar losing value.

The Reagan era proves that what nutty professor Gordon says is blatantly false.

We do indeed as a country have a spending problem Mr. History professor and saying otherwise is an irresponsible and ignorant thing to do.  It's clear you haven't done your homework, so on federal spending history, you get an 'F'. 

You can email the professor at:  colin-gordon@uiowa.edu

Comments

[Randy Crawford]

Communistic interests, such as those that run the "non-University of Themselves and not of Iowa" (a.k.a. University of Zero Nobel Prizes) are interested only in their hidden goals and not at all in the truth. The history professor is merely doing the job that is expected of him, and wouldn't want to imperil his employment by dealing with reality. The problem is not merely the professor, it is also the lying con artist administrators who hired him and who maintain his parasitism of public revenues, along with hundreds of other lying leeches.