My name is Kate Bittner and I am a high school senior at Clear Creek High School in Evergreen, Colorado. I am writing you about our national debt and to ask you what can be done about it. Currently our national debt is over nineteen trillion dollars and growing every second. Our government's spending has gone out of control. I believe that we should cut some of the programs. One of the programs that should be cut is the growth of entitlement spending. This entitlement program has accounted for more than half of the federal spending. According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, the first definition of entitlement is the condition of having a right to have or get something. I believe that some of these entitlements should be paid out, such as social security, Medicare and Medicaid because people have paid into these programs. The second definition of entitlement is the feeling or belief that you deserve to be given something such as privileges. The welfare, food stamps and unemployment programs are a few that should be addressed. While there are some people out there that need these from time to time, others tend to rely on them from a day to day basis. One of the many ridiculous things that our government has spent money on is gas emissions from cows instead of something that is more useful such as medical research. We need a president that will take a stand and fix these issues rather than one that will continue to say they will take action but never actually will. I know that these issues won't just happen overnight, but if we do not work on changing them now, they will continue to become worst. 

Sincerely,

Kate Bittner