If you ran your budget like Washington
To the editor:
What does the next “fiscal cliff” – the debt ceiling – look like, and what is a possible solution?
U.S. tax revenue in fiscal year 2012: $2,450,000,000,000.
Federal spending in fiscal year 2012: $3,500,000,000,000.
New debt: $1,050,000,000,000.
Current national debt: $16,400,000,000,000.
“Fiscal cliff” budget cuts: $12,000,000,000.
For the sake of argument and clarity, let’s remove eight zeros and pretend these numbers are a typical household budget:
Family income: $24,500.
Family spending: $35,000.
New debt on credit card: $10,500.
Outstanding balance on credit card: $164,000.
Total budget cuts: $120.
Another way to look at the debt ceiling: Let’s say you come home from work or a day out and find there has been a major sewer backup in your neighborhood, and your home is flooded with sewage all the way to the ceiling.
What do you do? Raise the ceiling, or remove the sewage?
GEORGE PEEL
HENDERSON
Laughable editorial
To the editor:
Whenever I read a Review-Journal editorial, my laugh meter is on. Whatever my expectations, Thursday’s editorial, “Paychecks shrink,” was a doozy.
The editorialists completely left out the theater their fellow GOP travelers put us through on Jan. 1. House Speaker John Boehner, Rep. Eric Cantor and company held meeting after meeting while leaking that the compromise agreed to by the Senate and the president was in jeopardy. They even implied they would amend this legislation, knowing full well the Senate was adjourned and could not act on it. When it became clear the American people would blame the GOP for going over the “fiscal cliff,” they finally allowed a vote on the Senate bill.
In short, the GOP-controlled House disgraced itself on Jan. 1. But the nabobs of negativism who write your editorials concentrated on the elimination of the 2 percent payroll tax break and its effect on all Americans. Of course, they left out the reason for its inclusion in the compromise: the GOP insisted on it. Why would they omit this important fact? Knowledgeable readers know.
Did the compromise have anything to do with ObamaCare? Of course not. But those same editorialists couldn’t wait to bellow about increased costs to taxpayers as part of its implementation. Again, they didn’t tell the whole story. These costs will help cover Americans against catastrophic costs that bankrupt thousands of families each year.
We had an election where the Review-Journal supported Mitt Romney, who vowed no increased taxes on the rich and the elimination of ObamaCare. He lost. President Obama and the American people won. It’s a message the Review-Journal editorialists still don’t understand.
IRWIN KAUFMAN
LAS VEGAS
Unconstitutional
To the editor:
It is obvious that neither the president nor anyone on his staff have read the Constitution. I suggest they read Article 1, Section 8: “The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States, but all duties, imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States.”
The government is barred from raising the taxes on only the wealthy. It isn’t uniform. This administration has just violated the U.S. Constitution.
MARLENE DROZD
LAS VEGAS
