Blake Johnston

615 N Monroe St,

Stillwater Ok, 74076
Frank Lucas
2405 Rayburn Hob,
Washington, DC 20515
Feb 20,2023

Dear Frank Lucas,

Hope you are having a wonderful day; I want to address the issue of our country's governmental
spending. We are spending money on things that are least important to our economy, causing
inflation. We have people in our country who need our help to be able to pay for their basic
needs and to stay off the streets. We would rather give money to other countries instead of taking
care of ourselves first. This is what I want you to do for me.
As a US citizen it is important to understand how budgeting works in the United States and know
where the money is going and how your tax dollars are being used. I think that the wars that we
are fighting in Ukraine and the war that we have fought in Vietnam are wars that we should not
be involved in. This causes our inflation to rise and then we must pay higher taxes to help
support this idea. Jeanna Smialek says that ‘If there is a simple political truth, it is that voters
hate inflation. If there is another, it is that they also hate the policies that snuff it out.”
Currently most of our spending is on social security and health care. The Catto institute says that
“major entitlements—Medicare, Medicaid, other health care, and Social Security—devoured half
of the 2022 budget, consuming 46 percent of all spending. ($2.9 trillion (about $8,900 per person
in the US) (about $8,900 per person in the US) (about $8,900 per person in the US) (about
$8,900 per person in the US) (about $8,900 per person in the US) (about $8,900 per person in the
US)).” I think that we should have more money towards our income security, veterans, National
defense, and our education. These are also important things to spend our money on and that
often get overlooked in our country.
This has affected me because rising prices make it harder to live and be able to afford the things
that we need. As a college student having student loans and having to pay for rent at an
apartment is a struggle. The Higher taxes and the prices of everything rising including college
tuition to get an education. More money is being taxed out of our income making it harder for
my parents to help me get my education and a degree.
I would suggest that we add more money towards our veterans, our schools, our income security,
and our national defense. These are important because it allows our country to become more
educated, our veterans will feel more appreciated, and our national defense will be improved as
well as our income security. This will then help with the protection of our people and our
country.
Thank you so much for your time, Hope you can fix the problem of our governmental budgeting
and our inflation. With your help with the budgeting, it will allow us to have a better cost of
living. As a college student it will allow us to save money for college to pay off student loans.
This will help benefit many Americans with more money going towards our national security,
education, and our income security. bdjohnston@04.icloud.com

Sincerely,
Blake Johnston

Annotated bib

The federal budget process | USAGov

 I will be using this source to discuss the annual funding areas of our country. This is a reliable source
because it is a .gov source written by the government. It was also published in December of 2023 and
has other sources available to learn more about the subject as well. There are lots of bullet points
making this source easy to read and understand.

Where Did Your Tax Dollars Go? A Federal Budget Breakdown | Cato at Liberty Blog

This source is used to describe where our tax dollars are being spent/used. This includes Medicare and
social security. This is a reliable source because it was published on APRIL 18, 2023, HAS TITLE AND
AUTHOR WRITTEN CLEARLY ON THE FRONT PAGE. THEY SIGHT THEIR SOURCES ON WHERE
THEY GET THEIR INFORMATION FROM AFTER GIVING OUR PERCENTAGES AND NUMBERS OURT
TO THE SIDE AND INCLUDING GRAPHS AND PICTURES OF WHAT IS GOING ON.

Budget Concepts (whitehouse.gov)

I will be using this source to describe how the government makes decisions on how the system
of budgeting works in the United States. This is a reliable source that is easy to read and
understand. It is written by the government and shows us the step-by-step way on how the
government produces their ideas and who it gets passed on to until it becomes the plan of
attack on how they will budget for the next year.

Trump and Inflation - The New York Times (nytimes.com)

I will use this to talk about the rise in inflation and how it will affect us. This is a reliable source of
because it is a recent source and has the author on the top part of the page. It is an easy source to read
and understand.