Dear Editor,
Will responsible government finally return to America in 2019, after two years of irresponsible governance through tweeted edicts and blustering blabber, with a lack of ethical, transparent, strategic planning?
Billions have been thrown to defense spending, and tax cuts were passed out to the wealthy with abandon, but all middle class America has to show for it all is relatively flat income, little genuine tax relief, and teetering, dwindling 401 retirement accounts.
Stock and bond markets are very nervous, with good reason. We continue to spend the world’s highest per capita rate for health care, with relatively mediocre health care results and lower life span expectancies compared to other developed nations.
America’s national debt is anticipated to double to $2 trillion within 10 years, with a full $1 trillion in tax revenue needed just to service the debt. Clearly, we have been hoodwinked by an unethical, incompetent leadership at several national and state levels.
The situation will worsen as world markets continue to lose faith in the U.S. economy and refuse to buy and service our debt. Inflation will continue to grow at a faster rate, with corresponding rises in interest rates, stalling consumer demand and further slowing the economy. We need grown-ups on the scene, now!
Some in Congress will advocate cuts in social security and other safety net benefits—everyone can work until age 80 if they can keep or find a job, and cat food doesn’t taste so bad.
Infrastructure? What’s that? And already, higher health care costs have been been sneakily shifted to working families.
Unless Americans demand change, things will get worse quickly. A change in spending mindset is needed at the top.
He told us before the election that he would never be golfing as president. This was just before he told us Mexico would pay for his wall/fence/wire/beaded curtain at the border. Our leadership needs to understand frugality and responsible spending.
America is a wealthy country that could afford more secure financial retirements for all its seniors, and quality healthcare for all citizens, but only if we curtail and manage more strategically our military expenditures and costs of funding the Congress, and facilitate true and honest tax reform where special deductions, credits, schemes and loopholes designed for corporations and wealthy elites are eliminated, in a system more transparent and efficient where people like Donald Trump pay real taxes commensurate with the wealth they’ve earned or swindled.
We are unlikely to see these reforms from our elected representatives who enacted the last purported “middle class tax cut”, one of the largest frauds ever perpetrated by a government against its own citizens. Spent your tax savings on a Happy Meal yet?
Mike Fetzer
Independence Township