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myurbandreamRaise your hand if you've ever played a game (computer game, board game, RPG, whatever) where you get to set the qualities of your character/tool/system on a sliding scale. zB: I think it's the Sims game where, at start-up, you get to pick the look of your character and then you get to pick their personality, by starting with a set number of points and assigning those points to different categories (smart, funny, athletic, etc) until all your points are gone. You only get so many points, so you have to pick how to distribute them and hope that the result works out in game-play the way you want it to.
Wouldn't it be awesome if the national budget worked the same way?
My personal budget essentially works like this: we get $$$ money in our paychecks every month, and we spend $$ on bills and food and things, so we have $ left over to save up or fix the car or go on vacation. (I use a combination of Mint.com, daily bank statement emails, and a little mental math to keep track of my and my hubby's spending; he's better at it than me.)
But the government budget somehow doesn't work the same way. Now, I'm no financial expert (if you've ever seen me with a stack of paper bills, you know that) but it seems to me that the federal (and state, and local) government is spending more money than it earns every period. The government "earns" money through taxes, and then it spends that money on stuff that we tell it to: defense, education, social security, etc, etc. (This is theoretically all stuff that cannot be better handled at a lower level.) And somehow or another the government manages to rack up a ton of debt every period, like they have the nation's biggest credit card.
Now, where this really starts to piss me off is that a lot of people will fill out polls saying that we need to maintain government spending in this cause or that, and increase government spending over here and over there, but there absolutely needs to be less taxing going on. And politicians keep promising to make that happen, and also to balance the budget and get rid of the debt.
Folks, that's just unrealistic, okay? Even I can do that math.
So really, our citizen polls (and our government budget committees) need a budget point bank. It should work like this: The government is expected to get $$$$$$ dollars in tax money next year. Categories 1-20 are the things that the government spends money on. Please distribute all your $'s in those categories until you run out of $'s in your point bank. When you run out, too bad - there aren't any more points; you'll just have to put them where you think they're most needed and live with that decision next year.
Wouldn't that be sensible? And responsible? Wouldn't that be nice?
But then, of course, every category would be short money as compared to last year's spending, and a bunch of people would be out of jobs, and a bunch of welfare programs would be cut, and a bunch of the military would be let go, and the economy would totally tank overnight, and that would all be terrible.
Really, I do think it would be terrible.
So then maybe you get bonus points. Like this: Projected taxes for next year are $$$$, and to close the gap between next year's budget and this year's $$$$$$$$ of spending, we'll assume an extra $$ of spending - which is going to put us that amount further into debt, but at least it won't totally wreck the economy in one go. And if you like, we can increase taxes to add one more $ to next year's budgeted income as well.
And now here's your point bank, and here's your categories, and please fill up each category until you run out of points, and that'll be our budget for next year, thanks.
Tell me if this sounds totally crazy.
Wouldn't it be awesome if the national budget worked the same way?
My personal budget essentially works like this: we get $$$ money in our paychecks every month, and we spend $$ on bills and food and things, so we have $ left over to save up or fix the car or go on vacation. (I use a combination of Mint.com, daily bank statement emails, and a little mental math to keep track of my and my hubby's spending; he's better at it than me.)
But the government budget somehow doesn't work the same way. Now, I'm no financial expert (if you've ever seen me with a stack of paper bills, you know that) but it seems to me that the federal (and state, and local) government is spending more money than it earns every period. The government "earns" money through taxes, and then it spends that money on stuff that we tell it to: defense, education, social security, etc, etc. (This is theoretically all stuff that cannot be better handled at a lower level.) And somehow or another the government manages to rack up a ton of debt every period, like they have the nation's biggest credit card.
Now, where this really starts to piss me off is that a lot of people will fill out polls saying that we need to maintain government spending in this cause or that, and increase government spending over here and over there, but there absolutely needs to be less taxing going on. And politicians keep promising to make that happen, and also to balance the budget and get rid of the debt.
Folks, that's just unrealistic, okay? Even I can do that math.
So really, our citizen polls (and our government budget committees) need a budget point bank. It should work like this: The government is expected to get $$$$$$ dollars in tax money next year. Categories 1-20 are the things that the government spends money on. Please distribute all your $'s in those categories until you run out of $'s in your point bank. When you run out, too bad - there aren't any more points; you'll just have to put them where you think they're most needed and live with that decision next year.
Wouldn't that be sensible? And responsible? Wouldn't that be nice?
But then, of course, every category would be short money as compared to last year's spending, and a bunch of people would be out of jobs, and a bunch of welfare programs would be cut, and a bunch of the military would be let go, and the economy would totally tank overnight, and that would all be terrible.
Really, I do think it would be terrible.
So then maybe you get bonus points. Like this: Projected taxes for next year are $$$$, and to close the gap between next year's budget and this year's $$$$$$$$ of spending, we'll assume an extra $$ of spending - which is going to put us that amount further into debt, but at least it won't totally wreck the economy in one go. And if you like, we can increase taxes to add one more $ to next year's budgeted income as well.
And now here's your point bank, and here's your categories, and please fill up each category until you run out of points, and that'll be our budget for next year, thanks.
Tell me if this sounds totally crazy.
