Our country is in a critical financial crisis and it appears that the people we have sent to Washington D.C., to represent us, do not seem to recognize the urgency of the problems that are in need of solutions. They continue to spend more money than the country earns and are leading us more deeply into debt and that is becoming more and more difficult to repay each and every day they do nothing.
It is obvious to the common man that he cannot run his household effectively when he continues to spend more money than he earns. If he wants to get out of the negative cash flow condition he is in, he must either earn more money or cut his expenses. When it Becomes apparent to him that more money is not available, there is only one alternative. He must sit down with his family and talk about where to reduce expenditures and pay off the debt that they have incurred.
Our government representatives should be required to do the same thing as the common man. Simply, our representatives must sit down and put all income and expenses on the table and decide what expenses can be reduced and/or eliminated, if and where more income can be generated, and make provisions to pay down our enormous debt. If this is not done our country will go the way of some countries in Europe. It is possible for our country to face bankruptcy in the not too distant future.
If and when the aforementioned process begins, there can be no sacred cows.
The first thing to be considered is to determine what expenditures do not directly benefit the citizens of the United States. These expenditures must be eliminated in their entirety. there can be no exceptions.
Secondly, our military strength should be reduced by eliminating those operations and personnel that are not being utilized to directly defend our country or the interests of the citizens of our country. Not to be included with the interest of the citizens are the interests of any department within our government. Our country should bring all our military back home and we should discontinue being the world's police force. Do we really need the number capital ships we have in our Navy or the number aircraft in our Air Force? The only military outside of the United States should be what is required to staff our embassies. We were warned by an outgoing President of these United States to beware of the growing military industrial complex.
Thirdly, the number of people employed by our government must be reduced by eliminating some departments within our government. I can think of a few that appear to not provide any useful product such as the Departments of Energy, Education and HUD. I feel that several others may not be producing anything but more regulations, which is one of the many reasons our job producing businesses continue moving their operations to foreign shores. Any department that exists to provide services that should be or could be managed on a state or local government level should be eliminated and return the responsibility for providing those services to the state or local government. Also, any department within our federal government that restricts growth of private enterprise should be eliminated. Within departments, any operation or service that is duplicated by other departments should be closely analyzed to determine which department could provide the product more cost effectively and eliminate all those operations in other departments. Elimination of departments or services provided within departments must be accompanied by reduction in government employees. Government employees should not be guaranteed jobs just as they wouldn't be in the private sector.
A fourth area in which large sums of money could be saved is in reducing the benefits that our representatives receive. Why do we pay them pensions that they people they represent cannot obtain? Should they not get the same retirement benefits to which the people they represent are entitled? A recent program aired by CBS in their 60 minutes program pointed out that many of our representatives are already wealthy, so why should they get any pension benefits from any part of government except social security? The representatives and senators should also be entitled to the same medical benefits their constituents are eligible to receive and no more. Our founding fathers did no intend that those people representing us would make representation a full time job or lifetime career. Many of those representing us have large staffs paid for by our government. Do they really need those staffs? Might it be, that the larger staff they employ, the more important they feel and the less work they have to do. They must get the message that are responsible to their constituents for their actions or inactions and are not in Washington for their own benefit.
Over the years we have allowed our federal government to grow and we have never demanded that the people who represent be held responsible to us. It is about time, we informed them. It would be prudent of us to not re-elect one of them next year because they don't remember why they are there or who put them there.
Sincerely,
J.E. Aldred
Cartersville