We're leaving a large burden

To the editor:

Hardly any other public issue troubles me as much as our enormous national debt of over $8 trillion, which amounts to about $28,000 for every person in this country.

This is an unconscionable burden, most of which will fall on people who are not yet of voting age and had no part in making the spending and taxing decisions that resulted in this debt. Most of the federal candidates this year said they wanted to make the tax cuts, mostly applying to the rich, permanent and wished to repeal the so-called death tax so the rich will be able to keep their wealth in the family.

The free-trade policies initiated during the Clinton administration have led to globalization. Population density in many other countries has resulted in wage rates which are a fraction of those in the U.S. If foreign labor is enough cheaper to more than compensate for the cost of shipping finished products from foreign nations to the U.S., our corporations will transfer their operation, and U.S. workers will lose their jobs, unless they will work for comparably low wages. Raising our minimum wage would put more people out of work permanently.

Our children are living in a world which is rapidly using up its fossil fuels so that the cost of transportation, heating and plastics, mostly derived from petroleum, is almost certain to rise substantially.

In view of these problems, I don't see how we can in good conscience burden our children with this enormous federal debt.

PHILLIPS H. BROWN, Cape Girardeau