‘Paygo' is just lip service, not action

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Rep. Steny Hoyer's Feb. 10 letter to the editor championing a concept called "paygo" as a means to help stop Congress' fiscal irresponsibility and national debit is a ruse at best.

Rep. Hoyer has been in elected office some 29 years. We have continually sent him back, election after election, based on his promises to fix things.

He has risen to be the majority leader, the second most powerful seat in the House.

What has he fixed? Has he really been the champion for eliminating wasteful spending? The best I see in my 60-plus years is lip service, not action.

According to USDebitClock.org, as of this writing, the U.S. national debt exceeds $12,372,224,000,000, which yields a debit per citizen (that is every man woman and child) of $40,100 and a whopping $113,159 per taxpayer. In addition we have government underfunded liabilities like Social Security, the prescription drug program and Medicare, which at this writing are $14,157,205,000,000, $18,731,070,000,000 and $74,488,679,000,000 respectively for a total that is rapidly exceeding $107,376,963,000,000 or more simply $347,885.00 per citizen. The debit to each one of us, to me, is staggering and incomprehensible.

With our current population estimated at 308.9 million, I do not see how we will resolve this easily or with paygo. I strongly believe Rep. Hoyer's suggestion that the paygo will stop this madness will only give Congress the cover to impose additional taxes on us and still not fix the underlying problem — we spend too much.

I say this because Rep. Hoyer's long career in Congress and his lofty leadership position should have long ago afforded him the opportunity to personally thwart irresponsible spending, whether it be inflated programs, just ill-conceived programs or earmarks.

After all the financial soundness of our government is, to me, job one for each of our elected representatives.

Without financial soundness, we all lose our freedom, liberties and generosity. Platitudes be damned, the only way out of this mess is to stop this spending. Yes, this means killing programs that someone sees as valuable. I don't see a choice unless money starts growing profusely on trees.

Rep. Hoyer, please start for once representing and acting in the best interests of all your constituents.

Robert R. Jackson Jr., Hollywood