Your Opinion: Government must re-evaluate funding

Dear Editor:

The federal government extracted over $3 trillion from us in fiscal 2014, the most ever taken from taxpayers.

That would have been enough to have a budget surplus during any year other than those in which Obama has been president. Even after "the sky will fall" sequestration cuts, the federal government spent $3.5 trillion in 2014, a 17.4 percent increase from 2008, and we are no longer funding wars in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Sequestration "cuts" have reined in spending somewhat, but the federal government still spent one percent more in fiscal 2014 than it did in 2013.

In fiscal 2014 just the federal government extracted an average of nearly $10,000 in taxes for every man, woman and child in the U.S.; over $26,000 per household.

The government spent even more, over $30,000 per household. My household didn't even come close to receiving $30,000 worth of value from the federal government, did yours? Total government spending, including state and local spending, is over $53,000 per household.

Obama wants $6 billion to spend for emergency Ebola services in West Africa. News flash to Democrats. The federal government is broke.

There is no D.C. magic money tree from which they can pluck the $6 billion. Instead the additional debt will put be piled on the shoulders of all future generation. Every future generation will be forced to pay the annual cost of the interest on this additional borrowed money.

I am 67 years old, for as long as I've been reading the newspaper or listening to the news our government has been borrowing money, further indebting all future generations, and handing it out to foreign nations. What have we taxpayers received for the additional debt, and interest we pay on that debt? How many nations that we helped have become self-sufficient? How many of them no longer require annual bailouts by American taxpayers? How many are now assisting other needy nations? (If you want to send money to help Ebola nations, get out your checkbook and send a check to the Red Cross, etc.)

The government needs to re-evaluate, and justify every program it is currently funding. If it cut spending back to Clinton era levels, 18 percent of GDP, we would have no significant deficits. During a couple of years of the Johnson presidency government spending was less than 16.5 percent of GDP.