Our federal government is completely out of control. There, I said it. If any one person spent money like those folks in Washington D.C., when there is no more money to spend, that person would be thrown in jail. Or maybe they would be thrown into a mental home. Maybe both would happen. Let's take a fun look back at the past week.
As you may have heard, we nearly had a government shut down last week. That would mean that the money was officially turned off, and all services provided by funds from the federal government would essentially be turned off. I will freely admit that a part of me was OK with that. There is so much spent on so many wasteful projects that I was initially OK with the idea of shutting things down.
Then I started thinking: what about the average Joe who depends on a pay check to pay bills? We heard about our service men/women who would not be paid. We started to hear that workers would be furloughed. We heard that those in Congress would still receive pay checks. I know we can all see the logic in that. (That is dripping sarcasm!)
Of course, at the last minute, a deal was struck to continue things until April 15. I imagine we will hear about this all over again at that time. Yet I started asking a question: why are we in this mess? So after some research, I found out something interesting. The reason for this threatened shut down is there was no budget passed for this fiscal year. When asked why, Charlie Rangel, Democratic Representative from New York, said, "They just did not get around to it." Now let that sink in for a minute.
About the only thing our politicians seem to know how to do really well is spend money. Basically what happens is they take money via taxes, and redistribute it. Those folks did not "get around" to passing a budget? What on Earth were they doing? When pushed on it, Rangle said there was no big uproar from the populace that no budget had been passed. Well, I guess we sort of think they might do what they are supposed to do sometime.
This is no attack on just one party. Why did Republicans not push for a budget a long time ago? If my memory serves, they have been there since January. What have they been doing? Maybe the newly elected ones did not know, yet certainly those that remained in office were aware no budget had been passed. That process takes a while. Certainly they would remember if that process had occurred.
We really need people in Washington who take responsibilities seriously. We need folks who understand we cannot simply spend, spend, spend. It sounds great to cut 30 or 40 billion dollars out of a budget, yet when the deficit is in the trillions, that is pocket change. There must be fiscal responsibility. Somehow, someway, we must get control of this financial mess. An ostrich can put its head in the sand for as long as it wants, yet that does not make the danger go away. Our population must recognize what is going on. When we have to borrow from China, to pay China what we owe them from before, that is a problem. When an individual takes a cash advance from one credit card to pay off one credit card that is a problem. Maybe we need to send all those folks on the finance committee to financial therapy. Or at least get them a good Dave Ramsey book. I will buy one for my representative, how about you?
