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Your Saturday, February 22 political cartoon, “Point of the Pen” titled “DOGE Jenga” hit the nail squarely on the head. In a very simple illustration, the artist demonstrated how our government has evolved into a complex bureaucracy showing where waste and duplicity is taking money away from those who are actually in need of the agency’s funds.  Layer upon layer of bureaucrats, directors, managers, supervisors, overseers, etc, etc all receiving taxpayer’s money for their pay and benefits with the actual targeted recipients of the programs’ funding getting the trickle-down pennies on the dollar.

Our government has been fiscally irresponsible for several administrations.  To avoid bankruptcy, we need leadership that will make the very difficult decisions to cut waste, abuse and prosecute fraud.  Yes, it will be difficult and sacrifices will be made and imposed.  The bigger challenge for our government is to encourage and enable people to be self-supportive so resources can be directed to care for those citizens who truly need the government’s help and financial assistance with limited overhead costs.  Status quo is not an option.

Phillip Minerich

Austin, MN