Letters: Washington’s fiscal fix

Re “Obama pressures GOP to stave off ‘meat cleaver’ cuts,” Feb. 20

As the next fiscal cliff deadline of March 1 approaches, when deep automatic federal budget cuts will come into effect, maybe it’s time for someone to inform President Obama that the election is over. There’s no need for him to continue campaigning. He needs to do the job we elected him to do.

Instead, we get rhetoric and sound bites. Obama’s most recent public recital took place Tuesday when he invited first responders and other civil servants to the White House, where he informed the nation that if sequestration happened, “people will lose their jobs.”

Perhaps that time would have been better spent meeting with members of the other party in Congress to devise ways to reduce spending and move toward meaningful tax reform.

Dain Gingerelli

Mission Viejo

With respect to sequestration, it appears that Congress created a problem that only Congress can solve (with the acquiescence of Obama, of course). But when the time comes to solve the problem, Congress is unable to solve it. They set themselves a trap, and then walked right into it.

Right now, sequestration is not the answer; just look at Europe’s experience with austerity. Deficit spending must come under control only after our unemployment rate drops sufficiently. You cannot fix the economy by giving the wealthy more than they have now and expect the elderly and middle class to pay to fix the problem. Unemployment is today’s most serious problem; fix that and the deficit will almost fix itself.

Congress had two weeks remaining to remedy sequestration, and its members went on vacation instead. Lawmakers should think about the regular guys for once.

Andrew Ogilvie

Modesto

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