Balanced budget

Dear editor:

I wish someone would please explain how Republicans can focus on only half the public debt problem, spending, which they also do, without mentioning income? Republicans tend to spend while they cut income through tax cuts and Democrats increase income to at least attempt to balance a budget and pay for their spending, which has been done the past two years and the debt was reduced by $1.7T in just the first two years.

The last administration increased the debt by a similar amount, but about all they did for four years was cut taxes and waste money building a wall that’s never been built.

The important half of a balanced budget is income. And Republicans cut income with their constant tax cuts, mostly for corporations and the wealthy which have allowed at least 25% of huge and immensely profitable corporations to pay little to nothing in federal taxes, with the burden shifting to those of us who can least afford it.

Consumer costs for the people and the government continue to rise. I will repeat myself: If you have X amount of income and you spend more than you are earning, then you, too, create debt. In fact, nearly all Americans have debt, yet they think the federal government can have a balanced budget? Anyone who thinks that knows nothing, and most don’t about how government works and really know next to nothing about how the economy works, let alone government, which is a result of the gutting of our educational system and yet they want us to believe we need a balanced budget at the federal level?

They say states have balanced budgets, and yes, they do, but they also incur debt by selling bonds to raise funds for special projects. States also rely on the federal government for bailouts, as does Wall Street as do the people when natural disasters strike, so I would love to know how they think, if they think or react, on how the federal government could ever have a balanced budget without completely collapsing. Please, I want to know.

Judith Zitko Hot Springs Village