Letter: Blame Dems for stalemate

Unemployment hovers around 9 percent, and the federal deficit continues to spiral out of control ["Obama, GOP spar over payroll tax," News, Dec. 6]. The supercommittee has been a super failure, and President Barack Obama admonishes Congress for not voting to extend the payroll tax cut. He urges, "Keep your word to the American people and don't raise taxes on them right now."

What he carefully omits from these sound bites are Democrats' proposed 3.25 percent surcharge on incomes of more than $1 million and a small-business tax hike, which is how they plan to make up for lost revenue. Unable or unwilling to present any plans until now, Obama, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and company are quick to point fingers at Republicans, conservatives and the tea party as uncaring and uncompromising people who would take food from the elderly and deny essential services to the underprivileged. And, for the most part, that is how Newsday and other mainstream media have covered the story.

Remember, the fiscal crisis did not just sneak up on us. Perhaps the time for action was in 2010, when the Democrats controlled the House, Senate and the White House. With the economy on life support and the Democrats having all the answers, why wasn't a debt solution, tax reform and jobs proposal pushed through then, when Republicans had no chance to defeat it? After all, isn't that how government-mandated health care was passed?

Democrats were more worried about the negative impact their proposals could have on their prospects in November 2010 than they were about the disastrous effects that no solutions have had on America today.

Ronald O. Roveto, Plainview