If you are a stable well adjusted family you make a monthly budget of some type. You know how much is coming in and you know how much is going out. If there is more money going out then coming in you have a Deficit— if it continues for a long period of time without correction you will face economic ruin.
We all know family or friends who run their house like a 7 year old— they put ordinary items on a credit card which inflates their debt, not only does that bag of $99 groceries actually cost $145 when you configure the interest charges putting everyday expenses on a credit card is a very bad idea.
So let’s say you are a family of four— two adults, one child 17 and one child 14— you sit around the table and you’re looking at your bills and you realize there is not enough money coming in each month so you have to do something. The 17 year old should be working so they are not a drag on the family budget— I’d even argue the 14 year old should be mowing lawns or shoveling in the winter so they have their own money. Hopefully Mom and Dad are on the same page— if Dad wants to fix the budget and Mom still wants to take that Disney trip this is a problem. If her solution is to put it on a credit card and worry about it later then she is running her house exactly the way our Government runs our country. If they’re on the same page and Mom and Dad in this case either both have to have jobs then one of them needs to pick up extra shifts or a second job. If things are really bad they need to seriously look at additional educational training to get them into a higher paying job, and all of this needs to be countered with something no one likes;
Budget Cuts.
If you have a deficit, or a monthly shortfall especially a recurring monthly shortfall then you need to enact budget cuts.
Eliminate cable or satellite, change to an inexpensive phone carrier, eliminate vacations and make do with staycations for a while, cut back on driving, make shopping lists and meal plan so you aren’t impulse buying. Find a cheaper hair cut, stop taking your car to the dealership for repairs and find a local mechanic who isn’t out to gouge you. Turn off lights, turn the themostat down, yadda yadda.
We get it, right?
Well how come the Federal Government doesn’t?
Let’s go back to our Street Analogy— only this time you live in House A, acrooss the street is House B, next door on either side, House C and D— but no socialism this time—each house runs it’s own way.
So your house, House A is ecomically in trouble. You have credit card debt you are trying to pay down. You have to make budget cuts. Trouble is for years you’ve been sending money to House B because those are your cousins and you promised you’d pay for their Cable bill for some reason. House C are your in-laws and you buy their groceries every week. House D has always been a great neighbor— they even come over and mow your lawn because they know how busy you are.
House A, your house, has to make cuts. House B has come to you to ask that you pay their internet bill too. Hard to say no to House B. House C is asking if you could get those groceries at a higher end market because they feel the quality isn’t there.
Does this sound ridiculous?
It’s exactly how the United States treats other countries around the world. We pay $74 BILLION in foreign aid despite having a deficit in the TRILLIONS. Taking it back to the street, you are not going to be able to turn your family economic situation around continuing with what you are doing, and the same goes for the US Government. At some point someone has to say enough.
Do you know why some of us object to sending so much money to the Ukraine (yes it’s because you are Putin loving monsters— actually no—) before the war Ukraine was considered one of the most corrupt governments in the world— how about this from the Associated Press?
Because we continue to hurl good money after bad— HURL it. And not just into the corruption of Ukraine, but to many other equally corrupt goverments.
It cannot continue. Think about the way you run your own house— I hope and pray you are not in over your head credit card wise. Now impose those measures on our elected officials, speak up, write to them, tell them you want responsible spending in government, because the path we are on is not one of success.