Letter to the Editor: Road to ruin
BY Larry Knight, Tulsa
Sunday, January 06, 2013
1/06/13 at 7:48 AM
The United States is on the path to insolvency and bankruptcy. This result is inevitable unless spending is reduced by the federal government. Nationally recognized people from both political parties agree that it is impossible to solve our debt problem solely by raising taxes.
President Obama has an opportunity to put us on the road to solvency and prosperity. He is popular and could provide leadership to take the necessary actions. Recent polls show a large majority of the American people believe the debt is a serious problem and spending cuts are necessary to solve the problem. But President Obama refuses. His latest "bottom line" calls for $1.3 trillion in new spending now and only $850 billion in vague spending cuts in future years by future administrations. In other words, there will be no spending cuts.
We apparently think bankruptcy cannot happen in the U.S. since it hasn't happened here before. But something similar happened to the Soviet Union in the 1990s.
Anyone under the age of 40 probably isn't aware of this major event, but the USSR could not meet its financial obligations. In the USSR, government jobs disappeared, factories and hospitals closed, pensions were stopped or drastically reduced, and a depression ensued. The area still has not fully recovered. When I lived in Moscow in 2000, some people were begging in the streets to get food.
President Obama is squandering an opportunity to solve an enormous national problem. He is actually making the problem worse.
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