An Open Letter to President Obama

Mr. President,

I understand from your public pronouncements that you will not tolerate any kind of fiscal deal with Congress unless that body agrees to waive its right to approve/disapprove any request by your office to raise the debt ceiling for the nation. I understand that you want to avoid such an argument that took place last summer over this issue and that threatened to shut down the government because of lack of ready cash.

I think it is self-evident that such a change in determining the debt limit would be extremely unwise. No responsible Congress would ever abdicate its right to determine the debt limit of the country to a President for his unilateral upgrade. A request like that from your office is totally out of line and smacks of a total takeover of the nation’s finances by the office of the President. What you are requesting is the right of a king, not of a President in a democratic republic, such as the United States.

If such a thing ever happened, especially during the administration of a President who is a profligate spender, inflation would go absolutely wild; and nobody in his right mind would every buy United States bonds—they would not be worth the paper on which they were written.

I think that with such a request to Congress, the time may have come for America to bite the fiscal bullet and undergo the kind of austerity exercise we see going on in Greece. The difference in America and Greece, however, is that America does not have anyone to bail us out of bad spending practices.

I, also, believe that your demand for the right to tax the upper income group in America is misguided. I am well aware of the fact that in our country, the rich among us are becoming richer; and the lower income class is suffering from decreasing economic power. That is a bad effect of our economy, but taking money away from the very group that has investment money to use in developing infrastructure and increasing production will not help. Your policy of spending money on stimulus programs that temporarily puts money into the lower income level population has proven ineffective in alleviating this recession.

PLEASE look at the Republican proposals for handling the “fiscal cliff” problem; I think they have the right ideas.

Thanks for considering my opinions.

                                                            Sincerely,

                                                            Edward Manring
                                                            Westlake, Ohio