This letter will be short, but very, very sweet.

Our area well remembers the impacts that the recent floods have had on most of us. In my mind at the time of this writing, however is Lanesboro, Pa. Lanesboro was, literally, a village in a lake.

When I was younger, I regularly attended the services of the Lanesboro Community Church with my parents, Anna Marie and Floyd Lindsey. (Mom passed in 2000. Papa is a healthy 93.)I am so happy to tell you all that on June 3, 2012, I was in attendance with some of my family at their opening service. Yes! The first service since the devastating floods. The service was wonderful! The house of worship has been modestly and tastefully restored! I could not stay for the food and fellowship afterward, but I will in the weeks to come.

I’m glad I’m back. It feels good. I pray to see some of you back, as well. I am the next generation, as are many of you. Let’s come together to rebuild and renew at the Lanesboro Community Church.

Sincerely,

Kathleen M. Estabrook

New Milford, Pa.

December 21, 2011. It passed unnoticed but historians may mark this date as the beginning of a global economic depression, a depression that could make the economic nosedive of the '30's seem like a budgetary hiccup.

It was then that the U.S. debt of $15.18 trillion increased to equal the value of all the goods and services produced by this nation in one year, the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). This year the debt is projected to exceed the GDP by 5 percent.

Last year Washington collected $2.5 trillion in taxes. A lot of money but not enough. The spendocrates on the Hill breezed through that plus $1.3 trillion more. This year is expected to be the fourth consecutive year of trillion dollar deficits.

The General Accounting Office anticipates federal cash outlays to outpace revenues until at least 2021 at which time the debt will be $26 trillion. Everyone knows this can't go on. So what can we do? Basically, there are three courses of action:

Course No. 1: Just continue what we're doing, spending and borrowing.

The federal government issues Treasury notes, i.e., IOUs, and investors buy them. They get the IOUs and the government gets the cash. Trouble is, they're not buying them as they did in the past. Only 50 percent of the bonds are bought by foreign governments; the rest are “bought” by the Federal Reserve.

The Federal Reserve is a privately owned bank. It simply creates an account and deposits imaginary money into it, essentially creating money out of nothing. It then buys the unsold Treasury notes. It's a roundabout way of doing what banana republics do---print money. But more money in circulation only decreases its value causing inflation. Gasoline is the most visible example of inflation.

In 2008, the national average for a gallon at the pump was $1.61. This year it reached a high of $3.75, an increase of 133 percent. It's not that gasoline is more expensive, it's that the dollar is worth less. Eventually, the dollar could become hyper-inflated good only for kindling and confetti.

Course No. 2: Cut spending.

Serious spending cuts must include these mandated expenses: Social Security, $773 billion; Medicare, $478 billion; Medicaid, $255 billion; other mandatory programs such as unemployment insurance and federal pensions, $711 billion; interest on the debt, $225 billion; and the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), $35 billion.

The sum of these expenses is $2,477 billion, or $2.5 trillion---an amount that equals the entire tax revenue for one year. There is not so much as a dime left. Washington must borrow $1.3 trillion to fund the government and pay the military.

Draconian cuts in these entitlements are a necessity if there is to be any hope of avoiding death by debt. But even a symbolic decrease of a few percent in Social Security or the medical programs would generate a firestorm of protests, as they did in Greece.

Sovereign debt in Greece grew so out-of-hand that austerity became necessary. The result: riots, mass demonstrations, and decreased government revenue. Paradoxically, austerity caused what it was meant to avoid: more debt and increased unemployment. Not good there and not good here.

At least 50 million of us are hooked on government hand-outs. They're powerfully addictive, a kind of financial crack. Meaningful cuts in entitlements would cause anarchy, social upheaval, and mob violence.

Course No. 3: Admit that the budget cannot be balanced.

Simply default on all obligations. Wipe the slate clean and start all over again. What would this cause? The GDP would belly-flop, federal revenue would flat-line, and unemployment would explode.

The U.S. economy makes-up 25 percent of the world's GDP. A thundering collapse in this would drag the entire world into a spiraling decline, a rebirth of the Dark Ages.

The end, by whatever course of action is taken, seems unavoidable. Curiously, all this is happening in 2012, the year the Mayan calendar ends on December 21, the winter solstice, the darkest day of the year, at exactly 6:12 A.M, eastern standard time.

Sincerely,

Bob Scroggins

New Milford, PA

The recall survival of Gov. Walker in Wisconsin is being held up as an encouraging lesson for Republicans, and his rule in the state as a national model.  So let's take a look at what he's done, and what other states may face.

When he took office, the first thing Walker did was push tax giveaways for the rich.  This created a deficit, so to balance the budget he took away from the have-nots.  How, pray tell, is this not "class warfare"?

Next he implemented his "divide and conquer" strategy to take away the rights of public unions.  This is part of an overall design to take away the rights of all workers, and give all power to ownership and management, the way it used to be in the Age of Robber Barons.

Then he pushed a law to suppress as many Democratic voters as possible, under the pretext of preventing (virtually non-existent) voter fraud.  Requiring the inconvenience of getting a state photo ID is one thing, but trying to close state offices in Democratic areas while extending hours in Republican areas shows that election rigging is the real motive here.  (And Here!)

Walker was challenged on his highly divisive and crypto-Fascist policies, but lavishly funded by outside money, including from the reactionary Koch brothers, he managed to survive recall.  And he survived with the votes of ordinary people voting against their own economic interests, in  a way that would disgust their great-grandparents, who'd made Wisconsin a progressive state a century ago.  Now other Republican governors know they can push a radical agenda and survive - the people are fine with it.  Enough of them.

What happened to Wisconsin to make people such simpering fools?  The same thing that happened to another once-progressive state, Minnesota:  religious revival.  Don't doubt that far-right billionaires have been financing that, too, and for selfish political motives.

Sincerely,

Stephen Van Eck

Rushville, PA