PUBLIC VIEWPOINT: Federal Budget Cannot Be Balanced

We all need to face the reality that the federal budget cannot be balanced no matter who is elected.

Both parties claim that if elected they will balance the budget while not hurting voting groups such as our senior citizens and the right is also promising to increase defense spending. The facts arethat we spend $3.8 trillion while taking in $2.5 trillion.

Of the $3.8 trillion, $1.3 trillion is for discretionary programs with $868 billion for security/military and $450 billion for nonsecurity, totaling an amount equal to the entire defi cit.

The mandatory programs are Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid,TARP, Interest and other programs such as pensions that are promised expenses and will be impossible to cut signifi cantly. This leaves us with the reality that balancing the budget would require something like a combination of a 25 percent decrease in spending and a 25 percent increase in taxes, totaling $1.3 trillion. Almost every budget-cutting proposalcoming from either party is actually a plan to cut the rate of growth, not the item itself. Does anyone actually believe anyone in Washington will ever do what is needed to be done? Does anyone believe that the voting population will allow them to do what needs to be done?

K.E. DAY

Springdale