It doesn’t matter if you’re rich or poor, young or old, you need to tell your elected representative, Jeff Miller, and our senators, Rubio and Nelson, to quit spending money the country doesn’t have. If they won’t, we need to replace them. If you’re young, Washington’s reckless, irresponsible spending guarantees you higher future taxes and reduced standard of living. Young or old, today’s spending places Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security in jeopardy. None of our elected officials have the courage to tell you that they have promised more than they can deliver. They’ve used the benefits they can “give” you to buy your votes. Now, because they’ve overspent to provide those benefits the money isn’t there to sustain the promises. Both parties are guilty. If you’ll simply look at what’s happening in Europe, you can see our future. This isn’t rocket science. The majority of us live on a budget. We all know we can’t spend more than we earn for a long period of time. When we accumulate enough debt, we can’t get more loans. That is equally true for governments. Our government currently borrows nearly half of all it spends. You can look at Greece, Ireland, or Spain to see what happens to government programs when governments are broke. If we can’t get Washington to control spending, the government will run out of both money and credit. If you’re rich, your taxes will go up. But even taxing the rich at 100 percent of their income won’t cover current shortfalls. If you’re poor, think of life without food stamps, welfare payments or Medicaid. If you’re older and have always paid your bills and saved, picture life without the Social Security and Medicare you’re counting on for part of your retirement. The current debate in dysfunctional D.C. is how to reduce deficit spending-and our politicians are making little headway on that. The real issue isn’t deficit spending, it’s the national debt and the only way to reduce it is for government to take in more than it spends. The government must cut spending to have surplus revenue. If the current “leaders” won’t do it, we have to get rid of them. We can force government to take action now and live with minor changes to existing social programs or we can allow them to keep acting irresponsibly knowing that when the money and credit are gone, our government benefits will end with a catastrophic crash! The 2012 elections will determine the future of our nation. I urge everyone to think. Don’t pay too much attention to biased TV news just use your own common sense. We don’t need elected “leaders” who put self-interest ahead of the national good.
Briggs Diuguid Milton, Fla.
This article originally appeared on Santa Rosa Press Gazette: Government spending needs to cease