Editor, The Herald:

I would like to respond to the editorial “Mark Warner's Courageous And Creative Debt Strategy” By James Kendrick Woodley, III in the April 24, 2013 edition of The Farmville Herald. Over the past 15 years or so the leaders of this country have been trying to convince the American public that we would be so much better off if we would “give” more in taxes to build our infrastructure, to help the less fortunate, to support the military efforts, to reduce the debt and deficit, and etc. Our leaders have come up with many different ideas and ways to tax us. Some very creative and some not so much. They want an Internet tax. They want taxes on many parts of the new Health Law including those that do not carry health insurance. They want to tax our income at higher rates, etc. Yet nothing ever gets any better. The Federal tax income is more than 2.5 trillion dollars and the Federal money spent is in excess of 3.5 trillion dollars. A deficit of one plus trillion dollars. Yet we have a local Farmville, leader spouting that Mr. Warner's debt reduction surcharge tax idea is something that would help this country and should be considered. He would like to convince his readers that with such a plan the surcharge would reduce the debt to perhaps zero and than the surcharge would be dropped. My question is why should it be considered? The Federal government does not have an income problem, but rather a spending problem. It may be true the money collected in Mr. Warner's new surcharge tax may go towards debt reduction. However, what is to keep our leaders from just spending more in the form of recycled debt over and above the amount the surcharge brings in. They have done just that over and over in the past. New tax revenues have not helped reduce the debt in the past and there is no indication they will do so in the future. Our leaders are just not willing to show restraint in spending. They are much more interested in getting reelected and staying in office. That is what has gotten us into this mess and without new leadership and a change in the political mindset we have no chance in reducing the debt. It will only get larger irregardless of how much money the Fed collects in the form of surcharges.

Charles L. Fernandez

Buckingham County