Thank you for the Nov. 26 interview, “Sights set on second term,” with Congresswoman Jaime Herrera Beutler, R-Camas. With the “fiscal cliff” now in the news, it is refreshing to read that she supports spending cuts, including the military, which was part of the 2011 debt ceiling deal.
We have a spending problem. According to the website U.S. Government Revenue, in Fiscal 2002 the federal government took in $1.85 trillion in all taxes and borrowed another $157 billion. Ten years later, in FY 2012, after the Bush tax cuts had been fully implemented, government taxes brought in $2.46 trillion but we had to borrow another $1.1 trillion to make ends meet. Yes, tax receipts increased 33 percent but spending went up 77 percent. This is a recipe for disaster.
Refusing to cut spending in this context and claiming the solution is to raise taxes by $85 billion a year simply can’t be taken seriously.
Thank you, Rep. Herrera Beutler. Hang on to your common sense in the other Washington.
