As a small business owner who is not in the top 1 percent but pays plenty of taxes, I feel going over the fiscal cliff might be just the medicine the people of the United States need to take so that they start to understand where we may be heading.
All we hear from President Obama is how the top 1 percent needs to pay its “fair share.” I may be naïve, but “fair” to me means everybody gets to partake in the fun.
Going over the fiscal cliff allows all of the Bush era tax cuts to disappear. This would allow everyone’s taxes to increase. What could be fairer than that?
On the spending side, the work has all been done. The Republicans and Democrats have already decided where all of the cuts will take place, so obviously both sides are equally happy or unhappy, whichever the case may be. If Congress is unwilling or unable to do the job with more precision, this solution solves the problem for both parties.
What is crystal clear to me is that this country is in deep financial trouble. And the trouble is not Wall Street’s fault, and it is not China’s fault, and it’s not the demonized 1 percent’s fault. It is our fault. We simply want way, way, more than we are willing to pay for.
If the experience of the Greek people is any indication of pain and suffering that financial irresponsibility can bring on a country, then we are in for some rough sailing. The United States’ debt-to-GDP ratio is approaching Greece’s.
We are adding $1 trillion of additional debt annually. How can any responsible person believe that this is responsible government?
Past generations of Americans have passed on to future generations a nation that was in reasonably good condition, with a fairly well-functioning, limited government. This generation is passing on a bankrupt nation with a dysfunctional behemoth of a government. Let’s fix this.
Fred Hayduk
Wadsworth
Of angels and outrage
I was struck by the insensitivity, but mostly by the absurdity, of the Nov. 27 letter, “Offense taken.”
The writer seemed annoyed that Native Americans successfully protested the wearing of a Native American headdress by a Victoria’s Secret model during a fashion show, and expressed offense with the models wearing angel wings — a supposed show of disrespect towards angels and, therefore, also to Christians.
It was obviously an affront to the writer’s personal beliefs about angels.
The last time I checked the history books, it was not angels who settled, farmed, hunted and gathered on this great land so many centuries ago. Natural history museums are filled with the artifacts from great Native American cultures.
These other-worldly winged figures, the angels so desecrated by the runway props of a wildly popular lingerie company, have never been scientifically documented or even seen by any person of credibility, let alone subjected to the murder, discrimination, racism, relocation and obliteration of lands, rights and cultures perpetrated on Native Americans by a white Christian culture.
I found this letter quite offensive, and I’m not a Native American.
It was a fine example of distasteful self-righteousness, down to the last sentence, “That’s all right, we’ll pray for you.” Please, don’t bother.
I’d rather receive a smoke signal signifying knowledge, empathy, tolerance and understanding.
D.L. Klumpp
Massillon
Glimmer of hope
Thank you for printing Randy Ley’s Nov. 28 letter (“God, Lincoln and Thanksgiving”) regarding the two articles that were in your paper on Thanksgiving Day (“Prayers before public meetings debated” and “Lincoln celebrates Thanksgiving”).
I am thankful that in spite of all the negativity we read each day, every once in a while, if we search the pages of the news, we get a glimmer of hope, such as the main editorial, reprinting Lincoln’s proclamation for a national day of thanksgiving.
As Ley wrote, I am also thankful that men such as Lincoln knew whom to thank.
Lois Tucker
Hartville
