Strong Financial Discipline? You cannot be serious!

OK noodle this with me and think about it for a moment. It should take just a moment; if it takes any longer than that, go away and never read my blog again, because, need I say it? Your kung fu is weak. 

Let's say, for argument's sake, that your family budget this year is $35,000. However,  the hard truth of the matter is that your actual income is only $23,000, but you want to spend $35,000. So, how are you going to do that? Forget how idiotic it would be, for a moment. Since you have a credit card with a $12,000 limit , you are going to charge $12,000 to that card. Yes, it will have interest, and yes, that amount is over one half of what your annual income is, and yes, it will take you an immense amount of time at your income rate to pay that debt off, and (shh! don't tell your spouse) yes, you even fully intent to outspending your income again next year too, and the following year, but hey, you have big dreams so you are going to do this. So, when questioned by your spouse about this intended course of action, and the overt imprudence, ludicrousness, indulgence, irresponsibility, and unhampered consumer-lust of your spending plan, you retort with how you are showing amazingly Strong Financial Discipline. Your spouse waits to hear your explanation. 

You present to your spouse, with great conviction, that you are exhibiting heretofore unheardof fiscal austerity by cutting ninety (count them, ninety!) "Venti half-caf with room" cups of coffee annually(!) from your Starbucks budget, which will net a savings the equivalent of $170 dollars, annually. You heard me right, annually. One-hundred, seventy dollars. One-seventy. Dollars. That much. Fiscal discipline. You think your spouse would buy into that? Do you view your spouse as that stupid? How would your spouse respond? Before or after filing for divorce? Exactly. 

Well evidently your President of the US of A thinks you ARE that stupid. Because today, the White House has annouced it's fiscal budget for 09-10, which is $3.5 trillion with a T budget, which contains a $1.2 trillion with a T deficit (borrowed, which must be paid back, with interest). To top it off, they are hailing this administration as exhibiting Strong Financial Discipline, but cutting $17 billion in federal spending as part of this exercise in financial suicide. 

Hey, if you haven't figured it out, that's the same as you offering an annual savings of $170 on your family's $35,000 annual budget and calling yourself fiscally responsible and disciplined. (I just removed some zeroes to make it easier to grasp.) I do not know what your reaction is to this, but right off, mine is: You're kidding me right? You cannot be serious!

Well guess what? This adminstration is serious about the spending, and they aren't kidding about the plan, and they are hoping you are stupid enough to buy the idea that they are fiscally disciplined. They site the $170 savings while they borrow $12,000 as the proof. Are you that stupid? Tell me you are not that stupid. 

Final irony: guess how much federal borrowed spending that is per household? Well let me help. At approximately 116m households in the US, that is about $10,344 borrowed per household. Just shy of the $12,000 credit card debt in our above scenario. Oh, and you and I have to pay it back, with interest. How ya feelin' now? If like me, right now you are torn between looking for the nearest toilet into which to empty the contents of your stomach, and angry enough to call your congressman and senators. So whether or not you toss your cookies into the porcelin recepticle, do call your representatives. They are partially and particularly to blame for this fiscal disaster. I assure you that Feinstein and Boxer are complicit in this budgetary action. And if you think for a moment that this fiscal action is not going to have severe negative repurcussions in the next handful of years, then you are dangerously ignorant of even the most fundamental math. I am talking 2+2=4 math.  This is not even economics. This is just plain math.

Thanks for playing

:^\