Fiscal Sanity in a Troubled Economy

“An Economic Reality Check” (editorial, April 8) didn’t make sense until the last sentence: “Only fiscal sanity can keep it humming.” Just as all politics are local, so are most economies. When your neighbor is laid off, it is a recession; when you are out of work it is a depression! The economy in California is bad and getting worse because of the lack of fiscal sanity in Sacramento, not Washington. Where is the money going to come from for outrageous increases in workers’ compensation insurance? Increased liability insurance? The Paid Family Leave Act? The increased payout for unemployment insurance? Increased fees to cover government programs and bureaucracies?

Government employees and newspaper editorial writers seem to think that these costs can be absorbed by wealthy business owners who sleep on piles of money every night. It comes at a price, and that is in fewer people in your neighborhood working for a paycheck. Too bad those government employees and editorial writers never had the obligation to meet a payroll and all the other associated expenses to run a business. That would be an “economic reality check” that every business owner I know would love to see!

Kenneth Keller

Valencia

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Your editorial states that “since President Bush took office, the economy has shed more than 2 million jobs.” We also learned that another 2 million people are in U.S. prisons (April 7). Closer to home, in Los Angeles we see critical-care hospitals closing, hundreds of public safety officers called to active duty, thousands of teacher pink slips and uneducated children who are still left behind. Further, driving home east along Sunset Boulevard, soon after passing numerous multimillion-dollar palaces I notice that our “untouchable” population camping outside continues to increase. (Perhaps we should identify them as residents of Bushville.) Please tell us again: Who are we trying to save in the Mideast oil patch and who will benefit from more tax cuts?

Fredric Sanson

Hollywood

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Re “Idea of Deficits Grows on Lawmakers,” April 7: It took President Bush No. 1 and President Clinton 10 years to turn the U.S. economy around from the $3-trillion “debt and deficit Reagan days” of the 1980s. And it has taken President Bush No. 2 and his Republican administration only two years (2001-03) to wreck the economy with deficits already soaring to $400 billion yearly, stretching as far as the imagination can see.

Bush No. 1 and Clinton knew how to govern, creating solid, balanced economic government programs that the business and investment community trusted -- producing the greatest economic boom in the history of the country (1990-2000). The economy has been all downhill since Bush No. 2 took over, providing evidence that the Republicans don’t possess the basic skills needed for governing. We the people can do better.

Garth Bishop

Los Angeles