To the Journal editor:

One job requirement for congress and the president to fulfil is creating a balanced budget, providing fair return on investment for citizens, and long-term growth and stability of the country.

The federal budget process is highly complex, requiring commitment, consensus, transparency and oversight. Local government budgets fund essential services such as police, fire, EMS, education, etc.; and federal budget funds national defense, the rule of law, Social Security, Medicare/Medicaid, etc.

Following the link highlights government spending/services:

A balanced budget builds trust in government, but our last balanced budget was in 2001. Since then the Republicans controlled the House, Senate and presidency five-times and Democrats twice, but the deficit has steadily increased to $1.8 trillion, demonstrating both parties have poorly managed the federal budget for decades.

In 2025, the executive branch has subverted constitutional separation of power rules by bypassing Congress and is hell bent on firing government employees and inhumanely cutting vital services in a race to cut $2 trillion. Thoughtlessly and independently eliminating federal services, which were created to improve safety, monitor for fraud, and aid the public, only places everyone at risk.

As a former manager, I spent time coaching employees to be their best, but sadly needed to let a few staff go for poor performance or policy violations. Each time I lost sleep worrying how my actions would negatively impact to their lives. Each employee, whether in private or government roles, require respect.

The head of DOGE, Elon Musk, asked the public to brace for economic hardship due to deep government spending cuts. Musk’s net worth increased to $203 billion in 2024, which equates to a bonus check of $1.6 million for each of his 125,000 employees, but instead Musk laid-off 15,000 Tesla workers.

This new Orwellian department has also violated confidentially protocols, allowing the executive branch to view citizen’s IRS and health records, while refusing to share theirs.

Families are struggling to fund their must haves, food, shelter, utilities, healthcare, education and transportation. Pending cuts in funding and staff for Medicaid, a lifesaving service for many families, it inflicts additional hardship.

The executive and legislative branchs’ job is to ethically and thoughtfully reduce government waste by holding departments accountable, reviewing and debating revenue/spending, plugging loopholes individuals and businesses use to subvert their responsibility in funding the people’s government, all while minimize impacts on civil servants and the American public. Congress then submits a budget to the President to sign into law.

Feedback: The executive and legislative branches are dysfunctional and arrogantly forgetting citizens have a right and duty to provide impromptu performance feedback before 2026 and 2028 elections.

When loyalty to the president supersedes loyalty to American public or an oath to defend and protect the Constitution is subverted, their citizen-granted probationary term will not be renewed.