Greg Awtry

A loyal York News-Times reader dropped off an interesting article the other day. It was a “report” or newsletter from a Nebraska congressman. He was writing about what a mess it is in Washington and how Congress can’t get along,

He said, “Nebraskans are eager for change, believing that changes in many policies and programs are long overdue.”

On the back of the congressman’s newsletter were poll results taken from 25,000 people who took the time to voice their opinion.

Some of the questions and answers are:

Would you favor eliminating Saturday mail delivery if it would save tax dollars? Fifty-five percent said yes.

Are you willing to accept substantial cuts in federal spending if the cuts seem to be equitably shared by all segments of society? A whopping 86 percent said yes.

Do you favor an increase in the share of the federal budget devoted to defense related items? Sixty-two percent said yes.

Would you favor mandatory registration of all privately owned handguns in the United States? Only 49 percent said yes.

In view of the continued rise in hospital care, would you support mandatory cost controls imposed by the federal government on hospitals? Fifty-three percent said yes.

Do you favor gradually raising the eligibility age for full Social Security retirement benefits? Only 31 percent said yes.

There were other stories the congressman covered in his newsletter. He spoke about the federal budget process as being the most controversial and confusing exercises in government. He writes about how we need to cut spending, but Washington is engaged in a monumental “tug of war” on budget issues.

He also discusses how we need complete and thorough tax reform, saying the nation’s economic problems can be traced to the ever-increasing tax burden on all its citizens.

So here’s my question. Are you the one in 10 who thinks Congress is doing a good job, because their job approval rating is near only 10 percent? As the congressman points out, we the people are fed up with the inability of Washington to govern, to solve the nation’s problems, and to set a course for a positive and prosperous future.

The fact is most of our problems today are the fault of Washington’s failures. Congress is very good at pointing out the problems. It is very bad at solving them.

Do you need proof? Well here’s some proof for you.

The congressman writing this newsletter was Representative Doug Bereuter. It is a four-page newsletter he sent to Nebraskans in the summer of 1981. That was 32 years ago folks. Rep Bereuter was complaining about the very same problems that exist today because all they did for the past three decades was to talk about the problems and make promises to fix them.

Bereuter was complaining about the large federal budget of $695 billion (in 1981) that it would take to run the country. Today we spend that amount in only 69 days as our federal budget is now near $4 trillion dollars a year.

And with all that extra money taken from our pockets and sent to theirs in Washington, you would think they could do something with all those dollars that would garner the respect of more than one in 10 Americans.

Can you believe that in 1981 Congress was trying to fix Social Security, cope with the post office’s financial problems, legislate gun registration, reduce federal spending, properly fund the military and struggle to balance the federal budget?

This 31-year-old newsletter could have been written yesterday, as all those issues still exist today, proving Congress is not only inept, but incapable. The time has come to stop talking and start fixing, and it must begin with the voters who need to stop listening to empty promises and start demanding that we don’t face another 32 years like the past 32.

If the current crop of Nebraska representation, Johanns, Fischer, Smith, Terry and Fortenberry can’t right the wrongs, then we need to fire them and hire someone else who can. Shame on them. Shame on us.

With all due respect to Rep. Doug Bereuter, it is obvious his newsletter written in the summer of 1981 vividly points out that Congress’ biggest problem is… Congress!

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On Jan. 1 this year all working folks found out when they received their first paystubs of 2013, that the government had cut your take home pay by 2 percent.

They restored your contributions to Social Security and Medicare back to where they were a couple years ago, so the bottom line was your paycheck was 2 percent smaller.

Did President Obama travel all around the country saying that because Washington was cutting your paycheck by 2 percent the world as we know it was going to change? No, instead he just assumed Americans would do what we always do, tighten up our belt another notch and go back to work.

Enter the “Sequester” cuts. President Obama has spent the past few weeks flying around in his $200,000 an hour jet, telling crowds across America how devastating these Sequester cuts are going to be for our federal government. He doesn’t mention that it is only about 2 percent of federal spending.

Seems it was fine in January when Washington made us do with 2 percent cuts on our paychecks. Seems now, it is a national crisis two months later when the government is asked to cut its spending by 2 percent. Disgusting enough to make you sick, right?

Did Obama, in any of those stops where he was “crying wolf” say that Washington, even with the 2 percent cuts, is still going to spend more in 2013 than it did in 2012? No, he wouldn’t want you to know that.

What Obama should have done, instead of flying around, was to sit down at the Oval Office desk and write a few letters. We the American people could help him. Here are my suggestions:

His letter/s should say:

Dear (Other Country’s Leaders),
We regret to inform you that effective immediately we will no longer be sending you any more foreign aid until we balance our budget and pay off our debt.
You are aware the U.S. Congress has overspent our income to the tune of $16 trillion, and it seems foolish for us to give you more of our hard working Americans’ money along with the 40 cents we must borrow for every dollar we give you.
Feel free to contact us after our country is debt free and we’ll see if the American people will be willing to loan (not give) you some of their money at that time.
Sincerely, President Obama

Dear American People,
We regret to inform you that effective in 90 days the United States government will no longer be offering welfare to able bodied Americans since we as a nation can no longer afford to take care of those who are able to take care of themselves.
The U.S. Congress has put us $16 trillion in debt and it is time everyone who is able goes to work and helps us out of the mess they made.
You will be asked to show up at a local labor pool, sponsored by your town, city, county or state. At the end of your first month’s work, you will be handed your unemployment check.
Contrary to what the media reports, there are millions of jobs out there and we are counting on you to work as hard as the great Americans who built this marvelous nation for all of us.
Sincerely, President Obama

Dear United States Military,
Over the centuries you have been there for us. We have tried to give you everything you need to protect our nation. And, as you know the world has changed since WWII and we can no longer afford to have troops deployed all across the world, especially since the most serious threat the nation faces today is a financial one as the U.S. Congress has borrowed $16 trillion to keep us afloat.
So effective immediately we will no longer be borrowing money from foreign countries to fund our military. Instead we will be bringing our troops home to defend our nation instead of policing the world.
Rest assured, we will continue to fund the military for the purpose of defense, but will no longer be in the business of nation building.
Your Commander in Chief, President Obama

Dear Congress,
Half of you in the House and Senate can blame me for the $16 trillion debt. The other half can blame George Bush, but the fact is you appropriate the money and you make the tax laws, so before you whine and moan any longer, first take a long look in the mirror. There you will see the person/s responsible for our nation’s fiscal crisis.
You have given the American people a government they can no longer afford and it is high time you fixed the problem. Yes, it will take an increase in taxes. Effective immediately, the Democrats will be in charge of this. It will also take drastic spending cuts. The Republicans will be in charge of this.
This should be a labor of love for each party and provide you the opportunity to correct your previous wrongs and leave a country in pristine financial condition for future generations of Americans who hopefully will learn from your mistakes.
Awaiting your legislation, President Obama

Okay, I know the letters I wrote for the President seem far-fetched, but it is true we can no longer afford the government we have now.

We all have to either pony up and/or expect a lot less from the federal government. And it is true that Congress is solely responsible for this and until they put Americans and the United States above their political careers and political parties, nothing of any consequence will happen in Washington.

It is time they stop pointing fingers and it is time we begin to point fingers, and I am pointing mine squarely at the Halls of Congress.
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President Obama and the U.S. Congress are very good at raising taxes and spending money. They are very bad at reducing spending and lowering taxes.

As I write this editorial column on Sunday, December 30, 2012, to be published on Wednesday, January 2, 2013, I have no way of knowing if you will ever read it.

As publisher, it is my job to lead this newspaper through the often times opposing views of journalism and capitalism. To do this we have to approve an annual budget, establish subscription and advertising rates, ensure all the logistics of printing and distribution are in place, and adhere to all the government’s regulations. On top of this we are expected to produce an excellent product five days a week and do so at a profit.

We should have done all this work in the latter half of 2012, but we were too busy trying to cover the election and fighting the pipeline route, so we “kicked the can” down the road until after the election. Then we spent the next seven weeks arguing amongst ourselves about the entire process. Then, we decided since it was the Holidays we would just wait until the last day of the year to do all this, so we could spend more time at home.

So today (I mentioned this was written on Sunday, December 30, 2012) I called our management team together to see if we could actually produce newspapers in 2013 and avoid the fiscal cliff we made for ourselves by not doing our jobs as our readers expected us to do in 2012.

Around the table we have Kathy Larson, our Advertising Director, Steve Moseley and Melanie Wilkinson our Managing Editor and News Editor respectively. There is Bryan Emick our Circulation/Distribution Director, Valerie Nunnenkamp who leads our Creative Department, and Eric Eckert, our Online Director. All of these individuals are instrumental in leading their departments and represent important elements to all of our readers.

I open the meeting by telling those present at the table, we need more revenue, and just like President Obama’s budget, which calls for a 64.2 percent increase in personal income tax rates over the next five years, I ask the team to raise rates by 62 percent, but that we should consider only raising subscription and advertising rates on the richest readers and largest advertisers.

Kathy Larson in sales immediately says that is not fair and balanced. Bryan Emick in circulation says we don’t know how much money our readers make so we would have to ask everyone for their tax returns to see if they should pay more.

Eric Eckert, our digital expert and Valerie Nunnenkamp suggest we cut out expenses instead. Eckert says let’s stop printing the paper and make everyone read the paper online. Nunnenkamp says let’s drop all color ads so we don’t have to print the paper in color.

Moseley and Wilkinson in our news department want us to expand the paper so we can print more news stories and more photographs.

Larson says if we raise ad rates by sixty percent that nobody will buy the ads and we will actually bring in less revenue. Emick says if we raise subscription rates by sixty percent people will cancel their subscriptions and a hundred newspaper carriers will lose their jobs.

I just want to play golf and take the family to Hawaii, and if we can’t get this done, we’ll fall over the fiscal cliff and possibly won’t be able to produce newspapers our readers deserve!

Of course none of this really happened. But if we actually ran our newspaper like Washington is running our country, I guarantee we would have readers more outraged than they are with the way our federal government is taking care of the peoples’ business right now.

We would have hundreds of York News-Times readers writing us letters to the editor and calling to cancel subscriptions. Our advertisers would be outraged and threaten to cancel advertising contracts. Our contracted carriers who are up in the middle of the night trudging through snowdrifts would picket our office in fear of losing their jobs.

Yet most of us sit idly by watching Washington mismanage our country to the point it jeopardizes our future, while placing a near insurmountable burden on our children. Where is the outrage?

Have we all given up on the notion that our country was founded on principles that the people would rule through representatives? Are you happy with the way they are doing the job we hired them to do? Have you contacted them and told them about your feelings?

All of us here at this newspaper try desperately each and every day to put out a paper that is representative of our community. We are not perfect and don’t claim to be, and when we mess up, you let us know, and you should! When our nation is in peril and your congressman, senator or president mess up, do you let them know? You should!

My resolution in 2013 is to watch our Washington, Lincoln, and York representatives like a hawk. You deserve that from your newspaper. Your job, if you choose to accept it, is to help us. Help us build by letting us publish your opinions on how well (or not so well) our elected officials (your employees) are doing.

Here, at the News-Times, Larson, Moseley, Wilkinson, Emick, Nunnenkamp and Eckert did their jobs in 2012 so we could keep our business running efficiently and profitably in 2013.

If Obama, Reid, Boehner, McConnell or Pelosi, were to apply for work at the News-Times, they would be turned down, not qualified based on poor job performance.

Sitting around the Whitehouse on the last day of the year trying to figure out how pay for a government we can no longer afford is no way to run a country, which is why we could never hire any of these national leaders. They don’t deserve to sit around a negotiating table with people of real integrity like we have here at the York News-Times.

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The United States deficit and national debt are all the talk on Capitol Hill and in the White House. Seems Washington is finally tuning in to what people have been screaming at them for years.

First, a quick definition of the terms. The deficit is the amount Congress overspends each year. The debt is the accumulation of years of racking up those deficits. Right now, we send Congress about $2.5 trillion a year (the highest ever) while they spend about $3.8 trillion a year. They must borrow the difference ($1.3 trillion), which adds to the debt, now standing at over $16 trillion.

To balance the budget and stop this madness, Congress would have to raise taxes by 50 percent or cut spending by 35 percent. Neither is going to happen, so the answer lies somewhere in the middle, and to get there the Democrats (who favor tax increases) and the Republicans (who favor spending reductions) must compromise (which neither favor!)

Today, the conversation in Washington is centered where it always is, on taxes not spending. And here is some breaking news. The two, taxes and spending, have nothing to so with each other! If they did, we wouldn’t be in this crisis. We have the annual deficits and national debt because Congress has spent whatever they wanted for the last 18 years regardless of the amount of taxes we send them. So, simply raising taxes does nothing to curtail their spending addiction.

For the last four (Obama) years the American people have sent Washington more tax revenues each year. From 2009 through 2012 we sent them $2.1 trillion, $2.2 trillion, $2.3 trillion and $2.5 trillion respectively, a 20 percent increase over those four years. Over the same time period, Congress spent $3.5 trillion, $3.5 trillion, $3.6 trillion and $3.8 trillion. The previous 8 years under President Bush, Congress also spent more than they took in. This shows us the problem isn’t who is in the White House; it is the fault of the U.S. Congress.

This shouldn’t be alarming. Congress hasn’t passed a budget in over three years! They can’t even agree on how to overspend! From my point of view this is insubordination and they should have all been fired. In reality, it wouldn’t have mattered. If they did pass a budget, they would have overspent anyway.

The $16 trillion national debt belongs to our generation. Congress spent it, not our children, so simply passing it off to them would put a burden on future Americans unlike any generation in American history, and now Congress must now come up with a way to pay our nation’s bills.

The solution is more taxes and less spending. The “more taxes” will be no problem for Congress. They are very good at this, as they have proved to us for decades. The “less” spending is virgin ground. Congress has no idea on how to do this.

Enter politics. Both parties have made fiscal promises in exchange for votes. Making spending cuts in Defense, Social Security, Medicare, Education and foreign aid are tough. Making cuts in unemployment, welfare, food stamps, etc., well, how do you think that will fly? Then they must close loop holes for businesses that give generous campaign donations. See how that works out. Those political promises made to get and keep Congress in office are now coming back to bite them.

Who cares? I, for one, don’t care at all about their promises. I care about the fiscal integrity of the nation and the future we will leave to our grandchildren. “To hell with your promises, and clean up your mess”, should be our message to Congress these days.

It will take political courage from both parties and strong leadership from the White House if we are to seriously address our debt and deficit crisis. Unfortunately, this is where our true deficit lays. We have a leadership deficit in the White House as Obama has clearly shown us his inability to create a vision for the future and pull parties together. We have a compromise deficit in Congress as they have shown us ideology and partisanship weigh larger on their minds than does the fiscal crisis of the United States.

The sooner the President and Congress wise up to the fact there will be no winners in the solution, the better. But let’s not hold our collective breaths, for a genuine solution is doubtful given the current crop of intelligence deficit disorder representatives in Washington.

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