Aug
11
2011
Some fiscal advice for our government, Family Style
Author: Bill GallagherI just read the following analogy of our government financial state, and I have some advice. First the analogy:
The U.S. Congress sets a federal budget every year in the trillions of dollars. Few people know how much money that is, so we created a breakdown of federal spending in simple terms. Let’s put the 2011 federal budget into perspective:
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 (about 1 percent of the budget)It helps to think about these numbers in terms that we can relate to. Therefore, let’s remove eight zeros from these numbersand pretend this is the 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
Seems clear enough, if it’s accurate. Here’s what I’d tell the “Jones” family.
You have too many assets and too many reasons not file bankruptcy, so you should try this:
1) Get a second job or two and bring your income up around $60K (raise some tax revenue through increases and/or restructuring)
2) Cut expenses more than you have
3) Spend your money more carefully (improve efficiency, cut bloat, get staff benefit reductions)
4) Try renting your spare rooms (selling or leasing some of those valuable assets)
Your position is not as bad as others and you can get out of this bind soon if you pull together and stop blaming the other family members for the trouble. It is what it is, just get to fixing it.
