Letters to the editor for Tuesday, March 12

Run the USA like a business

Every business, whether it be manufacturing, service or commerce, has owners, stock holders, employees and customers. Our country has a president, and the owners are we the people. Stock holders are all the people that pay tax and are also employees. Then there are the people that do not pay taxes. They would be the customers.

Now when a business does not profit, they would call a special stock holders meeting. Usually the first order of business would be an emergency audit, and they usually decide to cut all department funding 10 percent across the board and liquidate non profitable machinery. That means down-sizing.

Why can’t the country cut all funding, all departments and if the ways and means committee can’t figure out what to do, get rid of them? Obviously, I cannot figure what their purpose is anyway.

Craig M. Lewis

Carson City

Government must tighten belt

There are several ways to look at the sequester that makes it more realistic for everyone.

We all recently received a 2 percent pay cut on our checks courtesy of the federal government. The government is now experiencing a 2 percent pay cut from the sequester. The government complains that it is actually more than 2 percent because it only cuts discretionary spending. The cut we are experiencing is also cutting our discretionary spending because we cannot cut things like the mortgage, the car, insurance etc. In our case, we can either work for more income or cut discretionary spending.

The difference between the government and ourselves is that if we want more money, we have to work for it. If the government wants more money, they take just it. If I go to my employer and try and take more money, I am arrested. We seem to forget in today’s society that the government works for all of us, not just the poor. Dr. Carson said it best when he said that we must all have skin in the game: And asked the question, why do we have to make tax hikes hurt?

The government needs to cut the waste, and anyone who says that there is no waste has never worked in the government. Don’t fall for the “ginned up fear” that the Democrats are peddling.

Jim Kelly

Dayton