Letter: Put cash in middle-class pockets

After 40 years in the banking industry, I have come to believe that the best method of fighting a recession is to put buying power into the hands of the public ["Obama's union hard line," News, Sept. 6].I've learned that the quickest way to bolster economic growth is to reduce taxes on the middle class, thereby enabling consumers to buy goods, resulting in increased manufacturing and production of products. This then increases local sales tax income, enabling municipalities to provide services without increasing taxes.

Back in the 1950s, unemployment was in the 4 percent range and the marginal income tax rate for high-income earners was closer to 90 percent. Why can't Congress open its history books and learn a lesson or two?

A two- or three-year adjustment in the tax rates would go much further than the so-called job-making programs that are being proposed today. Certainly, today's millionaires can afford to donate a little to the cause of economic recovery.

Bob Balla, Hauppauge