To the editor:
    
This year, painful choices will need to be made regarding the federal budget. I think most folks agree that cutting wasteful spending is a great start to the process. However, certain conservative leaders in Congress believe it is OK if federal jobs are lost in the aftermath. What happened to the urgency of creating jobs? Why do federal jobs matter less than ones in the private sector? Dont federal workers need to pay their bills and take care of their families, too? Are federal workers somehow less valuable? 
    
Many government jobs get paid less than equivalent positions in the private sector. While I understand there can be wasted dollars spent (think the F35 Strike Fighters second engine costing $3 billion over 10 years), many federal jobs are crucial to the security of our country and the economy. I have several family members and many friends that fill important roles in the federal government. Keep in mind that the Bush tax cuts over the past decade cost the government $4 trillion. Why not end the tax cuts instead? Because it’s a “job killer” in the private sector but doesn’t affect those “unnecessary” federal jobs? 
    
As stated in a recent Washington Post column, a budget expert at the Center for American Progress said cuts of $59 billion in the last half of fiscal year 2011 would lead to the loss of 650,000 government jobs and an indirect loss of 325,000 more jobs as fewer government workers travel and buy things. The 1 million jobs lost could potentially tip the economic scale back into recession. So be it doesn’t make the cut.