In response to the April 10 letters in the Acorn ("Pink-slipped teachers sound off") by Mesdames Snodgrass and Barr, two teachers who recently received pink slips and are urging us to raise our taxes at the ballot box to reemploy them: Welcome to the real world the rest of us are experiencing.

Those of us who do not live off of taxpayers cannot take our jobs for granted. In the last few months, my company laid off 400 of our 1,400 workers due to economic conditions. The hourly workers remaining have seen their hours cut back, and those on salary have had their compensation reduced significantly.

Now, you are asking all of our families to make further sacrifices through tax increases so that your families won't have to share the burden. We should risk missing mortgage payments so you won't have to.

Your unions have bankrupted our state by insisting on lucrative pensions and lifetime free medical benefits. Have you seen the unemployment rates in this state? Have you seen the newspaper notices of default on home after home? Have you seen what has happened to everyone else's 401(k) plans?

Wake up and smell the coffee. Opinion polls I've seen show Propositions 1A through 1E failing badly. It's not that we are lacking in empathy. It's simply that we can no longer afford to bail you out yet again.

Take personal ownership of your situation. You two ladies are presumably relatively bright individuals, given the profession you have chosen.

You are both more than capable of finding another line of work. Become part of the solution instead of trying to shift your economic burden onto others.

It's a tough world out there. No one is secure these days. We are all tightening our belts a notch or two.

If you want to increase your likelihood of being gainfully employed, you need to find ways to become valuable and productive in the private sector.

Think of this as tough love. Aaron Starr Simi Valley