To the editor:

When reading Mike Hoeflich’s ominous screed (“US facing constitutional crisis,” Journal-World, Nov. 30), I was reminded of the sick patient, who rather than opting for painful surgery, kept trying to find a doctor who would tell him what he wanted to hear. Merely electing new politicians won’t cure our fiscal problems!

As a nation, we have been living beyond our economic means, and there is a growing realization that if we don’t get our fiscal house in order, the U.S. dollar will lose its status as the global reserve currency. Since our Federal Reserve has been running the printing presses 24/7 for the past decade, should foreign banks start to dump their dollar reserves, Americans will likely need wheelbarrows to go shopping. The automatic cuts mandated in the deficit reduction legislation are the first, small (and painful) steps toward fiscal health.