Unfettered Letters

Debt bill will come due

My daughter has her first job. We have moved her from spending Mom and Dad’s money for clothing purchases to her own. It’s interesting to see her purchasing decisions change. It was easy to want that $70 pair of jeans when someone else was paying.
My daughter has gained an understanding of why Mom didn’t swipe the plastic for every desire. Mom knew, and my daughter has learned, that someone will be responsible when the bill comes due.
Too bad our government does not have the same understanding. They have no restraint swiping their card (our taxes) to build their designer wardrobe. My daughter knows it is wrong to have the expectation that her children and grandchildren be responsible for her excessive desires. She gets it. Our government does not.
There has been a tea party movement, a la the Boston Tea Party, building in our country. It protests our government compromising our children’s and grandchildren’s future with massive debt that will some day come due.
It has been a long time since I’ve had a tea party with my daughter. Maybe we’ll host a tea party and invite the whole country. Maybe they’ll get it.
Joyce Kallenberger
Weatherby Lake

Grandchildren will pay

Please tell Barbara Pfaff (3/12, Letters) to get her head out of the sand and quit blaming the Bush administration for the current economic fiasco and Rush Limbaugh for his comments on the huge amounts of pork being pushed down the taxpayers’ throats with the current stimulus plans.
I remember that the economy was doing just fine until the Democrats gained the majority of the House and Senate in 2006. Then the likes of Barney Frank, Christopher Dodd, Harry Reid and Queen Nancy Pelosi came into power, and the economic slide began.
It is sad to think that my grandchildren and great-grandchildren will be paying through their noses for the trillions of dollars being wasted now.
Ed Linton
 Independence

Nation’s credit crunch

All of our elected officials in Washington are oblivious to the real problem facing our economy. Until they realize that they can’t fix a credit-related problem with more credit, no amount of stimulus money or bailout is going to help.

Consumer spending is slow because people are mired in huge amounts of debt they already can’t pay, and they couldn’t obtain more credit even if it were available.

Until the government controls the amount of interest the credit industry may charge and allows consumers to rid themselves of their current debt, without accruing more, our economy will never recover.

Brian Acker
Kansas City

Proud of national debt?

If you’re bored, you might want to go to Congressman Emanuel Cleaver’s official Web site for a laugh. He has a counter that continuously upgrades the national debt. Currently, the debt is nearing 11 trillion dollars.

Additionally, the counter portends that “Your Share” is about $35,800 which, I gather, must mean every living person in this country owes that amount and not just me. The total goes up about $6 million a minute.

He must be proud of that increasing number. It has skyrocketed in the last several weeks at the hand of our newly elected president and a Congress whose approval rating has recently soared to 30 percent. Just a guess here, but I think that when you give free stuff to people, they tend to think you are great. And maybe they’ll vote for you?

Nowhere does Cleaver’s Web site contain any information on how the debt will be repaid, but I’m fairly sure I know.

Larry Dickstein
Lone Jack

Disgusted with hotshot bankers

I am disgusted as I read about the hotshot bankers who make the big bucks because they “need extra money to be motivated” (12/22, A-1, “Banks in bailout gave big rewards”). Is this still America? Do we still have a collective soul?

I think of the thousands of workers whose daily efforts keep the country going and who do not always quit at quitting time if there are still people to be served. Do the hotshot bankers think they are more intelligent and deserving than the teachers, social workers, nurses and other caregivers who chose to enter a service profession despite the lower pay?

And what of the people who are overseeing the bailout? Does U.S. law not provide the clout to hold accountable the recipients of the bailout money that taxpayers were told would salvage the country’s economy?

In less than a month, a new administration will take over. Will the hope of the campaign carry over past Jan. 20 in the face of so much brokenness in America? Hopefully, Washington will take its cue from the middle class. Those at the top are too far removed from the reality of the rest of us to be of much help.

Janelle Lazzo
Roeland Park

Hillary’s campaign debt

Here is my plan. I read that Hillary Clinton cannot locate anyone to pay her bills. Not even her millionaire husband will help, so she will write the millions she owes off her income tax (12/23, A-2, “Clinton writes off campaign loan”).

So the next time I buy a soft drink and candy bar in a store, I will look around for someone to give me money. Then, if I don’t find someone, I will “loan” myself the $3 to pay the bill and write if off my taxes.

Bob Faulkner
Prairie Village

U.S. government has maxed out credit

Debt, and a boatload of crooked deals on Wall Street, is what brought us to our current financial dilemma.

People have tapped out everything they can on credit cards, home-equity loans and everything else they can get. Some say American business is now at the edge of a similar debt cliff and may soon drop off.

If so, that would largely be a result of consumers who have borrowed to the max and can’t afford to buy anything else.

So, the businesses — auto manufacturers today, who-knows-who tomorrow — are lining up for government bailouts.

And the U.S. government: What’s their limit? My evaluation is, they’ve pretty much maxed out their “credit cards,” too. China and Japan have been Visa and MasterCard for the U.S. government for a long time.

What will the U.S. government do when its credit is cut off, when China and Japan either cannot or will not lend the U.S. government another nickel?

I believe we’re about to find out.

Steve Grant
Kansas City

Consumer spending got us into mess

We keep being told by the “experts” that the way out of the recession is consumer spending. Consumer spending is what got us in this mess in the first place.

For several years, personal credit card debt has increased, and now the average credit card debt per household is reaching the $ 9,000 vicinity. The mortgage fiasco wouldn’t have exploded if consumers had examined their personal finances and purchased a home within their needs and means.

So go ahead, consumers, and spend yourselves out of the recession. But before you use your past-due credit card for that iPod, Blackberry, big-screen TV or $200 concert tickets that you just can’t live without, bring that credit card balance down to a manageable amount.

Clyde Houghton
Shawnee

Debt-loss challenge for KC

You know how other cities have had city-wide weight-reducing challenges? I think Kansas City should start a national trend and have a debt-reducing challenge with another city.

Every household would do what it takes to reduce their own debt. The combined “weight loss” would be measured, and we would see which city was taking bigger steps to regain individual financial control.

This economic crisis has scared me straight. No more needless purchasing on borrowed funds anymore!

If we want the government to tighten up, let’s start at home. Anyone else up for the challenge?

Jenny Whitehead
Kansas City

Trim pork for grandkids’ sake

The article “How they’d cure the pork” (10/16, A-2) aroused my curiosity when it mentioned that “earmarks accounted for $18 billion in last year’s budget.” The rest of the paragraph seemed to imply that that amount was not very significant since it was “much less than 1 percent of the federal spending.”

To those, who make their living representing us in Washington, it may not sound like much money. However, it does add $18 billion to the deficit, and that is about $59 per man, woman and child in the United States today.

By the time our grandchildren start paying that debt with interest to foreigners, it will likely be a very significant amount.

Kal Makela
Lenexa