Fraud, waste rampant

Twenty-four years ago, I wrote letters to the editor and members of Congress expressing my concern about unbelievable waste in the federal government. An example was $l0,500 spent for a portrait of an outgoing secretary of agriculture. Responses from Washington were disappointing, unconcerned, and so what, waste is inevitable.

I asked the question then and repeat it now: If Congress and the president cannot control spending, how will our children and grandchildren cope with future debt burdens?

Today, after spending most of my professional career working in governmental finance with mandatory balanced budgets, I simply cannot comprehend nor find words to describe the growing financial fiasco happening in our country. The magnitude of out-of-control spending, coupled with mind-boggling fraud and waste, no federal budget, annual trillion-dollar deficits, and a seemingly insurmountable $15 trillion debt hanging over current and future generations are all realities.

To some this may seem like total gloom and doom, but let’s try to get back to the real world. Which is worse? The critical fiscal problems we face, or a Congress and president, unable to give up an apparent lifestyle of fame, power, money and re-election votes, who have lost the will to change? E. JACK MURPHY

Little Rock