Let politicians take the hit

Can some Washington politician — Democrat or Republican — please explain to us taxpayers, how at a time when we must make $80 billion in budget cuts that will cause American teachers and other employees to lose their jobs, and hurt the recovery of our economy, our United States government can afford to loan $4.8 billion to Egypt!

That amounts to 6 percent of the budget cut!

Wouldn’t the $4.8 billion be better used to protect American jobs? How many teachers or air traffic controllers would that amount pay? If the average salary of these jobs is $48,000 — which is probably high — this would save 1 million U.S. jobs!

It makes me wonder how many other loans to countries that already hate us could be used to save our jobs and health care.

One thing for sure, it proves that there are other things that our leaders (using the term loosely) could do instead of raiding money from seniors, teachers and government employees, including first responders, to reduce our country’s deficit!

Besides outright layoffs, some of these employees will be required to take one day off per pay period without pay, causing cuts in necessary services to the general public.

How about if all the federal, state, county and city elected politicians take off one or two days per pay period without pay, and provide that money toward reducing the budget!

And maybe they could take a 50 percent cut in their expense accounts!

That would certainly help with the $80 billion in spending cuts, and since most of them don’t show up for work a few days each pay period anyway, it would not affect the public services at all!

Wake up America! Our two-party system no longer works for the benefit of our country. They are too busy pointing the finger at each other to do the right thing!

Maybe we need a committee of taxpayers in Washington to determine what items need to be cut from the budget that would best serve the citizens.

But actually that is what our elected officials are supposed to do. They just forgot!