Suggestions for places to cut the budget

Milton Friedman taught us what causes inflation and how to prevent it. The Greek government — along with several other Euro-zone countries — has taught us how to coddle unions and federal employees with promised benefits until they borrow themselves into the abyss.

What is it that President Obama, Sen. Harry Reid and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke don’t get? Spending has to be cut. The alternative will be catastrophic for our nation, not just our economy.

I don’t want to cry wolf without offering some suggestions. That would be too Republican of me.

How about farm subsidies? These laws were written in the 1930s to protect a mostly rural society from financial ruin. These laws now favor the huge agri-business farmers. The bulk of the subsidies go to a few rich farmers — the top 10 percent of farmers receive 65 percent of subsidies. Some of these farms are wholly owned or partially owned by our own senators and representatives.

How about government travel? Conferences all over the world. Rep. Nancy Pelosi brought her entire staff to Italy. Boy, she could really rack up the miles. Let us not forget that they travel first-class or at least business class, not coach like I do.

How about federal employees carrying U.S. government credit cards? These cards were issued to save the government money by not having workers forced to verify every little expense — stationery, ink cartridges, stamps. Only purchases over $2,500 had to be scrutinized. How many of these cards are there, you ask? A whopping 500,000 and growing. How’d you like to have one of those babies?

For a semi-complete list of government waste, read “National Suicide” by Martin L. Gross.

Consider these alternatives to where they always like to cut first: entitlements.

john venniro

Las Vegas

Five weekends

To the editor:

The tub thumping for our economy in July (“Clark County taxable sales up,” Wednesday Business section) is a bit off the mark. Neither in the story, nor in statements by the Applied Analysis research firm, is it mentioned that this past July was a month with five weekends.

The article does not note the impact, nor contrast, a month with five Saturdays and five Sundays — plus the Fourth of July falling on a Monday — with July 2010. To make a valid comparison, I feel it should have.

LARRY M. TOTH

Las Vegas

Loan sharks

To the editor:

Tuesday’s headline article, about the U.S. government’s need to increase spending for disaster relief, said Republicans wanted to offset that cost with a reduction of $1.5 billion in an auto loan program. What’s the government doing in the auto loan business? That should be the business of financial institutions. The 50 percent of us who pay taxes shouldn’t be competing with private industry. Government has its fingers in too many pies.

Phillip Mlynek

Las Vegas