Dave Cundiff writes correctly that our ever-burgeoning national debt can undercut international confidence in the strength of the U.S. dollar, which is now entirely a fiat currency. No longer does our dollar have gold or silver behind it to give it value. Instead, only by proclamation of the debt-ridden U.S. government does the dollar have value.

However, his argument that the remedy lies in tax hikes is foolish and false. The current administration is proposing tax hikes in excess of $4.7 trillion, a vast sum that instead of being pulled into the black cesspool of government waste and corruption would instead far better benefit the economy if left in the productive private sector. Dave Cundiff poses the question as to who is running things in D.C. when, until recently, those who share his passion for omnipotent government enjoyed complete control of the Federal government, and still do control the White House and the Senate, only narrowly falling short in the House.

In reality, the massive tax hikes of the Biden administration will never solve or even dent our national debt when the Federal government is rife with bureaucratic waste and pork barrel spending, and will serve only to depress economic growth. Historically, there is no better stimulus to economic growth than tax cuts, and if tax cuts tend to benefit the wealthy it is because it is the wealthy who pay most of the taxes. The United States actually has one of the most progressive tax structures in the world. The argument that the government has a moral right to overtax its citizens is an argument for plunder.

The truth of the assertion of the benefit of tax cuts can be seen today in the laboratory of our federal system, for it is the Republican states that today are enjoying healthy economic growth, while the Democrat states languish. Texas and Florida, with their growing economies, are now the destination states for those fleeing the sluggish economies and ruined cities of the overtaxed and over-regulated Democrat states, including New York, New Jersey, Illinois, and even California. Those who seek an ever growing Federal government at the expense of the states do so in part to hide and distort this reality — that policy differences matter, and that no economic growth can come from bloated and wasteful government.

RICHARD D. BONESTEEL, Jr.

Ilwaco