Editorials

Unnecessary government spending must be cut

Hernando Today
Published: June 14, 2009

Re: Mary Repper's feedback letter in regard to the cannery in Hernando County being publicly funded.

I understand and sympathize with your position but feel the need to respond to a few misunderstandings. I always tell people "we the people" got us into this mess and only ""we the people" can get us out.

It will take good private citizens, such as yourself, to come to grips with the fact that something you are used to being funded by the taxpayers may not be a necessity or even legal. Just because it has been that way for some time, does not make it right. In these tough economic times that our government is solely responsible for putting us in, we the people must tighten our belts and do everything we can to assist them in finding unnecessary spending.

The Soviet Union used to be a superpower as we are today. They collapsed financially and we are headed in the same direction. This is not opinion or "rhetoric." It is fact. Not one economist in the world has determined how we will pay down our debt. Instead of cutting spending, even here locally, we are only talking about raising taxes, fees and installing parking meters to cover even greater spending.

All of our irresponsible behavior will be passed along to our children and grandchildren in the form of massive tax burdens that will enslave them. This is just not the way God-fearing responsible parents and adults are supposed to act. Our own president was quoted two weeks ago as saying "we are out of money" in an interview with C-Span.

I have a lot of respect for anyone who has the guts to voice his or her opinion, and that includes you. I hope to cross paths some day to have a friendly conversation about this matter as it appears that you are closely related to it. If this were privately funded, I would be willing to make a donation to help keep the doors open. My wife and I discussed bringing our son up there for something fun to do, so please don't think I am attacking the cannery itself. I am only attacking the public funding of it.

Times are tough for many of us right now and if I had a choice of whether to send a dollar to the county to support the cannery or take that same dollar and put it away for my 3 year old's prosperity, I would pick my 3-year-old son every single time.

Until then, I will be waiting for you to tell me the article and section of the Constitution where we the people enumerated the power to our government to tax us for this purpose.

Jason Sager

Brooksville