We keep hearing from politicians at all levels of government that if we cut spending we will no longer be able to pay our creditors, schoolteachers, military and retirees. This is indicative of which jobs need to be eliminated: the people making these absurd, fear-mongering statements. Most folks who don’t have enough money to pay all of the bills ­prioritize them and let the less important ones slide. They don’t get another credit card.

When a business finds that it is not making money, it cuts expenses. The stock price goes up, because the market believes the problems are being addressed. The same is true of credit raters. They only lower ratings when the entity continues doing what got them into trouble in the first place.

The cuts that need to be made are not from the bottom of the food chain, but the top. The expanding bureaucracies have added very little productivity. In fact, in most cases they have taken away from productivity. I heard one person say that they spent too much time in and preparing for meetings to actually get any work done. Besides, those meetings in most government agencies result in more regulations that impede business effectiveness.

So, let’s recognize the people who want to use scare tactics to continue expanding the government and spending our money, which ruins this country or community, and vote them out. Let’s make sure that the remaining representatives understand which projects and organizations are expendable. The money needs to stay in the hands of those who make jobs in the private sector, which increases revenues, rather than adding to the government, which depletes revenues (and debt increases).

In Pinehurst we can keep it the way it was, when we all decided to move here.

Polk Dillon

Pinehurst