Tax cuts and the economy
Edward Prescott, who won the 2004 Nobel Prize for Economics recently, said President George W. Bush's tax rate cuts were "pretty small" and should have been bigger. "What Bush has done has been not very big, it's pretty small," Prescott told CNBC financial news television, "Tax rates were not cut enough.” Prescott went on to say that lower tax rates provided an incentive to work. The problem we face in America is a complete lack of common sense economic education, or even awareness. John F. Kennedy cut taxes in the 60’s and spurred an economic boom. Reagan did it again in the 1980’s. In both cases, the total revenue collected by the government increased! Why? Because if people are allowed to keep more of their own money they have an incentive to work more, earn more and pay a dollar amount more than they were under a higher rate. Also, if they keep more, they will invest it or spend it. Either way, that results in an increase of jobs so we have more people paying taxes and revenues go up. DBJ

Terrorists and Nukes
Did that get your attention? It did ours. At the time of this writing VP Dick Cheney has said that “The biggest threat we face now as a nation is the possibility of terrorists ending up in the middle of one of our cities with deadlier weapons than have ever before been used against us — biological agents or a nuclear weapon or a chemical weapon of some kind….” We agree wholeheartedly and that’s why we support the war on terror being fought overseas, offense backed with a strong defense. We hope that no attack occurs before the election, but the terrorists would like to swing the election here just as they did in Madrid, and thus claim a victory over America. The best long term solution to winning the war on terror is to change the environment that produces terror. The military option of killing them is good short term, but establishing democracies so the people of the Arab nations can have a say in their destiny and begin to prosper will dry up the recruiting grounds. DBJ

Winning the global energy war
This publication feels it’s high time to devote the intelligence and resources of the United States of America to a project that will free us from the greedy oil sheiks and robber barons all over the world. If John Kennedy could state emphatically that we would put a man on the moon within a decade, then why can’t we produce higher efficiency vehicles or homemade fuel sources or something that will prevent our citizens from being held hostage to the oil cartels in the next ten years? Plans are already in place to produce bio-diesel and other fuels from our rich agricultural lands. We could be the center of a new fuel boom right here in Mississippi. The only ingredient missing in such a scenario is the will of our elected officials to stand up to the oil company lobbyists and push this agenda. If George Bush wants to truly leave a memorable legacy for the future, then let him be the president who wins the economic war for abundant energy. DBJ