Spend less, make more to avoid fiscal cliff

As we approach the fiscal cliff, here's a solution based on personal finance.

1. Spend less than you make. This means immediately cutting government spending to a level below government income. The government is in a hole and needs to stop digging. Keep the dire essentials and cut the rest. Yes, this means gutting poverty assistance. It will also mean significant defense cuts; we don't need the most powerful military on earth, we need one strong enough to protect us from an invasion.

When you prune a tree, you don't remove 10 percent of the leaves from each branch, you remove whole branches.

2. Get a second job. This means a temporary tax increase for everyone, not just whatever group the politicians hate. Almost half of U.S. families pay no income tax. Realistically, this should be no more than 10 percent; everyone capable of work should be a taxpayer, even if it's only $10 a month. Yes, this will hurt the economy; that's why the increases are temporary.

This would be painful, but it would work. Unfortunately, the president would rather have an issue he can use to demonize his political opponents than he would a solution.

Dan Ewing

Lexington

Police unchecked

Lexington is buying new police cruisers — because money is no object when it comes to police spending. Although this newspaper is too timid to report the news about police arrests, the public should know that the police waged all-out warfare on motorists over the summer, setting up over a thousand roadblocks and making thousands of arrests.

The growth of the police state grows unabated despite the fact that violent crime has been decreasing for decades. Of course, you can expect no debate about this wild level of police spending, because some topics seem to be off-limits.

John Sabot

Lexington

Bust the voting blockade

Something shameful and despicable happened leading up to this past election. Republican governors, legislatures and election officials used every trick in the book in an effort to keep people who ordinarily vote Democratic from voting.

A right which people fought, bled and died for 50 years ago was once again being taken away from American citizens.

In his victory speech, the president said about long delays at some polls, "By the way, we have to fix that." Now is the time "to fix that," not two weeks before the next election.

These disgraceful practices must be declared unconstitutional as throwbacks to the poll tax and literacy tests. In addition, we need federal laws to provide stiff penalties for any official who attempts to do this again. Let's get this done now.

Lawrence E. Durr

Lexington

Hunt for compromise

I think it's time to get the hound dogs out and go searching for Mitch McConnell's lost ability to compromise. It seems it's been missing for the last four years and it really needs to be found if we're to avoid the fiscal cliff. While we're at it, we might even search for the word "Yes," which for the last two years also appears to be missing from his vocabulary. All we've heard is No, No, No, No, No — just like a 2-year-old throwing a tantrum because they've not gotten their way.

Enough is enough. If he can't compromise and occasionally say yes, then it's time for him to go.

Joe Crouch

Lexington

Bible still best news

This letter is in response to the letter in which was made the following statement: "Everything has been said about the Bible that can be said."

First, the Bible is the best news we can hear today. The Old Testament conceals what the New Testament reveals.

How God created the world is explained in the first 11 chapters of Genesis. The Bible was given to us as a road map through life.

Second, those people who lived in the Old Testament times were looking for the first coming of Jesus.

Their experiences during that time are recorded in the Old Testament. Good times and various hardships are given in the Old Testament.

Third, there is a golden thread of redemption that begins in Genesis and winds its way throughout the Bible. That thread explains how God provided for his people then the same as he does now.

Fourth, the new testament is the teachings of Jesus in the four Gospels and throughout tells of how man can be redeemed and know for sure that there is a heaven and a hell.

Fifth, reading the Bible will convict a person of their sins and make them want to be a Christian. Remember, if John 3:16 was the only verse in the Bible, the world can still be redeemed today.

Read it.

The Rev. Ron Moroni

Danville