Readers respond: Act now to preserve future choices

Unfortunately, we are facing a financial crisis in this country, and if we don’t act now and elect Gov. Mitt Romney, we won’t have any choices in the future.

To turn our country around, we have to grow. As a capitalistic economy, that growth comes from businesses, which in turn create jobs. If you are going to help business and create jobs, then you need to have had the experience to know how to do it. 

President Obama has never owned a business, never been responsible to make payroll, never had employees and has no idea how to run a capitalistic economy.

What most Americans don’t realize is the interest on our debt (currently at almost $16 trillion) is undermining our economy faster than anything else.  Raising taxes won’t accomplish anything, as currently only 50 percent of Americans actually pay taxes.  Most of the tax-paying Americans are in the middle class, so if you raise taxes, you are hurting the very people you say you are trying to help. 

When you borrow, you give away your power to those who have loaned you the money.  As long as the United States continues to borrow at a rate that we can’t possibly repay, the quicker we will be heading for a total economic collapse.

Currently, a vast majority of wealthy Americans (many in Congress) have their wealth offshore to avoid paying U.S. taxes.  If you continue to tax the wealthy, they will continue to invest their money offshore, where it does nothing to contribute to the U.S. economy.  One way to stimulate our economy is to have money to grow and support businesses that create (and keep) jobs in our country.

Like it or not, we have to make some hard choices moving forward, while we still have the option of making choices.  If we wait until our economy actually collapses (and yes, it will) we will then be answering to the countries who hold our debt. 

We have to help our citizen’s by giving them a hand up, not a handout.  When you constantly give handouts, you create a dependency; and when you have a dependency, then you have fewer people who are contributing to the system of support.

The sooner we as Americans embrace the necessity of change, the sooner we can get to the business of making those changes. If we don’t act now, we will soon find ourselves in the same position as Germany was pre-World War II, which led to Hitler coming to power.

I hope that citizens planning to vote in November will take the time to educate themselves on the U.S. economy and really understand the situation and the changes that need to be made, moving forward.