It's Time to Get Into Rehab

I received an e-mail from a friend of mine who said a business associate of his forwarded the e-mail to him. So I really can't say who should receive credit. However, I think the author of the e-mail really needs to be congratulated for putting our federal budget in simple terms and making it easy to understand.

The unknown author begins by stating that the U.S. Congress sets a federal budget every year in the trillions of dollars. Few of us truly comprehend how much money that is. So here is a breakdown of federal spending in simple terms:

• U.S. income: $2,170,000,000,000
• Federal budget: $3,820,000,000,000
• New debt: $1,650,000,000,000
• National debt: $14,271,000,000,000
• Recent budget cut: $38,500,000,000 (approximately 1% of the budget)

Since it helps to think about these numbers in terms that we can relate to, we should remove eight zeros from these numbers and think of it as a household budget for the fictitious Jones family:

• Total annual income for the Jones family: $21,700
• Amount of money the Jones family spent: $38,200
• Amount of new debt added to the credit card: $16,500
• Outstanding balance on the credit card: $142,710
• Amount cut from the budget: $385

So, last month Congress, or in this example the Jones family, sat down at the kitchen table and agreed to cut $385 from their annual budget. Now this begs the question, what family would cut $385 of spending in order to solve $16,500 in deficit spending? While it may be a start, it is hardly a solution.

After years of this irresponsible behavior, the Jones family has $142,710 of debt on its credit card (the equivalent of the national debt). Now you would think the Jones family would recognize and address this situation, but they don't. Neither does Congress.

The root of the debt problem is that the voters typically do not send people to Congress to save money. They are sent there to bring home the bacon to their own home state. To effect budget change, we need to change the job description and give Congress new marching orders. It may be difficult, but not impossible, to reverse course and tell the government to stop borrowing money from our children and spending it now.

In reality, what we have is a reverse mortgage on the country. The problem is that the voters have become addicted to the money. Moreover, most American voters are still in a denial stage, and do not want to face the possibility of going into rehab.

Now, do you get how serious this is?

Please e-mail me, tgrasson@gie.net, with your thoughts and opinions.

tgrasson@gie.net