I Don't Mean To Insult Anyone But.........

I know that most of you get it. But there is still a huge group of citizens out there that don't. This is for them.

First let's go over a few basic ideas:
Politicians do not really care about you. They care about your vote.
Politicians lie. This is like saying that dogs bark. No new news there.
A politician believes his first obligation is to get re-elected. At any cost.
Politicians love power. That's why they are politicians.
Spending your money gives them power.
Don't believe everything you hear or read in the news.
Reality always wins.

Now to the heart of the matter. Let's imagine for a few minutes. You're in a typical family. Spouse, couple of kids, mortgage, two cars, expensive extra-curricular activities for the kids. Typical. Both partners have good jobs so the life style is affordable. But it is a life style that does use up most of the disposable income. Savings are scant. As I said, typical.

Suddenly, bad times come over the horizon. Income is cut by half. Maybe you lean on the credit card for a month or two but you soon realize that this will be a long term problem. Smart people go into survival mode. You drop the country club membership. You eliminate the twice weekly dinners at Chez Upscale with the fifty dollar bottle of pinot. The kids give up their tennis lessons. You make what you have last. The other thing you do is make it easy for people to help you survive and recoup. You network. You send out resumes. You check out websites for job hunters. But one thing that you know that you must do is to make a budget and stick to it. Know what you have and organize how you spend it. You do not deficit spend because that is the route to bankruptcy.

A similar circumstance is upon our government. It started back in the Bush administration. The 2008 campaign came along and we were all assured that Barack Obama was the smartest man in the country. He knew all the answers and the country would be back on track in no time at all. Good times were coming to River City. Well a funny thing happened on the way to success. We didn't get there. In fact, in my opinion any movement has been downward. The problem is they believe in the magic of Keynesian economics. If I can break it down to one thought, it would be this. When a governments revenues go down, increase spending of money that you don't have and money will magically appear. May work in Oz, don't work here. Our government is now borrowing forty cents  of every dollar it spends. Best of all, they are borrowing from people that don't even like us very much. Oh, and about that budget thing, they haven't passed a budget in three years. They will say it is the Republicans fault but the first two years the democrats controlled the House, the Senate, and the White House. So that excuse wont float.

Meanwhile, what is the government spending all this money on. Their passing it out to friendly financial companies, supporters that run failing businesses, and ill advised social programs. We are now fast tracked on the road to bankruptcy and we have no statesmen in Washington just politicians. There is so much more, but I want to keep it basic.  You wouldn't run your home this way. Remember, reality always wins.