Michael Ryan was for the National Consumption Tax Before He was Against It

Re: "A huge step backward," from the April 25th edition of the Augusta Chronicle editorial page.

I can't believe this one. For at least a decade the Augusta Chronicle editorial page has written strong opinion pieces in favor of a National Sales Tax. They come up with propaganda favoring a national consumption tax on average about once a month, so they've printed an estimated 120 unsigned editorials in favor of the National Sales Tax.

In this column Mr. Ryan opposes a Value Added Tax, or VAT, which is the same thing as a consumption tax, but with a realistic closure of black market loopholes.

I agree with Mr. Ryan that a VAT would "suffocate" the economy (as would the consumption tax he's been in favor of for years).

Why would he be in favor of a consumption tax but opposed to a VAT when they're virtually the same thing?

Because democrats are in charge, and some may be in favor of this. So he's pretty much against it now because democrats might favor it. This is just like the health care reform bill that recently passed. It consisted of mostly republican ideas, but conservatives and republicans were against it because democrats were for it.

In any case there's no way a VAT would pass now. President Obama would never support this piece of political suicide, and the Senate did some kind of straw poll that showed 84 of them opposed it.

There was no need to comment on this, but Mr. Ryan did--I guess so he can illustrate his hypocrisy again.

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Re: "Cue the outrage," from the April 27th edition of the Augusta Chronicle editorial page.

Mr. Ryan likens the outrage over the passage of Arizona's new racist anti-immigration law with President Obama's defense of Henry Gates, when this African-American professor was arrested for no reason.

Supposedly, President Obama was somehow in error when he accused the policeman of stupidity.

Guess what--Obama was right. Gates was never convicted of any crime. The policeman was wrong.

And people are right to be outraged over Arizona's new law which legalizes racism. It gives police the right to harrass people because of their skin color. This is something that's unbelievable in this day and age.

But Mr. Ryan supports it.

His support for a racist law makes him a...racist.

Mr. Ryan brings up a poll that shows 70% of the people in the state support the law. So what? Even higher percentages of people in the south opposed desegregation back in the 1960's. That didn't make it right.

BTW, don't forget, Arizona was also the last state to make MLK day a holiday.