Living In Times of Belt Tightening

I’m glad the government didn’t shut down today and it’s only because of the military. I would hate to be out enjoying myself this weekend knowing that men and women in uniform we love so much but don’t pay that well may be struggling. If it wasn’t for that I may have enjoyed watching the country panic for a few days. Now that the deal is done we have to see how many jobs got swept up in those cuts. That’s the sad part about any cuts. You know someone is feeding their families because their job is connected to one of those programs on the chopping block. That’s why politicians look like heartless bastards to me when they talk about spending cuts like they found the money under some sofa cushions or something. I guess their job has less value because they don’t work for corporations like the politicians do.

Politicians like the use the phrase that the government has to tighten its belt the way average American families do when they are in a financial crisis. "Tightening our belt" is my second favorite saying right now after "do more with less". It’s true that when money gets a little tight families make changes to keep things going but that’s entirely different than a crisis. When families are in a crisis everything is on the table until the crisis is over.

In a crisis I have to do things that I normally wouldn’t think about doing and let go of my pride until I am doing better. I don’t believe in borrowing money from family and friends. I feel like if I don’t have the money to do something for myself then it doesn’t need to get done. I work with what I have. That’s how conservatives feel about taxes and government programs. I get that but we are supposed to be in a crisis. If I was really in a crisis I would call my parents and some friends even though I really didn’t want to. In most families parents would be pissed if they found out you were sleeping in your car because you didn’t want to ask them. If the government is in a crisis did we have to extend those tax cuts the way we did? Couldn’t we have let them expire and revisit the issue of cuts once we got back on our feet?

If we are in a crisis why wouldn’t everyone including the corporations be for closing the tax loopholes that would ring extra money in? That’s like someone having a few thousand dollars in their 401K they could access and to their house from getting foreclosed on and just leaving it there. Retirement is important but not being homeless now would be far more important.

Fighting two wars and then getting involved in Libya if we are in a crisis is like someone paying two car notes, losing their job and then buying a boat. If you knew a regular person that did something like that you would think he’s an idiot. If most American families handled financial crisis like the government is doing there would be even more homeless people than they are now which would be bad because we wouldn’t want to pay to help them.

The need to stop saying we are in a crisis and just explain what’s really going on. The rich and corporations want to keep all of the money they can and have the power to make more with no restrictions. The middle class can’t be taxed anymore without starting a revolution and the poor have no lobbyists. When you don’t have enough money coming in to pay for what you have and you are not willing to do anything to change that something has to go. That is the general principle going into these budget discussions. We’ll see how those average American families make out in the end especially if we lose Medicaid and the retirement age is raised to 71. I predict we will be doing a lot of belt tightening and bunch of other things too.