The April 27 edition of The New York Times had a cover story devoted to the New Recession Diet, how hard times are forcing people to cut back on all sorts of spending, including the most basic one: food. Newscasts in the past several months have been filled with reports of down-sizing (i.e. layoffs) in housing companies, in Bank of America, in Citibank, in Goldman Sachs, in Merrill Lynch, in industry after industry, both local and national.

In the face of all this gloomy news and predictions of lower tax receipts for states and municipalities, nevertheless Glen Cove, although under state-imposed mandate to not increase our indebtedness without prior approval from the state comptroller's office, is blithely adding personnel to the mayor's office. Work that was done by three people plus the former mayor now requires six people, plus the mayor, plus expensive part-time contractual help. The figures contained in the 2008 budget have been blown out the window and the threat of a state takeover is a very real one.

Our city government is similar to a credit card junkie who cannot realize that to get out of debt it is necessary to slow the spending and pay off the balance.

What part of "fiscal responsibility" don't they get?

Joan Hawkins