"Every day, families are figuring out how to stretch their paychecks a little further, sacrifice what they can't afford, and budget only for what's truly important. It's time for Washington to do the same." -- Barack Obama, July 22, 2011
It's a common meme that's been adopted by countless deficit-hawks, on either side of the aisle. And in an entirely abstract way, so long as one doesn't fuss over the meaning of "what's truly important", it even has an element of truth to it.
But in practice, there's a gulf of difference between what Washington deems important, and what our households deem important. And I posit that if Washington really WERE to treat the federal budget as if it belonged to a household, then the parade of bad debt-ceiling plans we've been hearing about over the last month, would come to a screeching halt.
Let's take the President's quote at face value: if I wanted to keep only what was essential in my household budget, while sacrificing what I can't afford, what would I go after?
Cable TV? Snip.
Gym memberships? Snip.
Cell phones with associated data plans? Snip.
Daughter's ballet class? Snip.
Eating out? Snip.
But again, that's just frippery. Waste. Non-essentials. Easy cuts to make when you're backed into a corner.
Much like the government, I also feel it's my duty to protect the people in my household. In Washington, defense spending is the be-all, end-all, can't-cut fetish.
So let's say that heating, electricity, the mortgage, and food are the be-all, end-all, can't-cut fetishes for my household. I may find ways to conserve or trim those particular monthly bills, but I can't eliminate them or even reduce them in any significant fashion. They also serve an important purpose: they keep us alive.
Where I differ from Republicans, is in the idea that the federal government should also protect its people domestically. We should aim to eliminate or reduce poverty. We should aim to keep the citizens of this country healthy. And we should provide for them when they're unfit or infirm.
That's job creation. That's welfare and food security programs. That's environmental protection. That's consumer protection. That's Medicaid/Medicare. That's Social Security. In essence, it's everything that's been put on the table for possible cuts, in this round of debt-ceiling negotiations.
And yet, people's lives hinge on this sort of spending, every bit as much as they do on military spending. More, I would say. Much more.
Back in my happy household, the budget is lean and mean. We've eliminated waste, we're still paying for essentials, but suddenly, we get hit with some bad news:
My daughter has cancer.
In spite of our health insurance, the bills from this will be astronomical. It will throw my budget completely out of whack. It will rival my monthly expenditures for mortgage, heating, electricity, and food, which I STILL can't cut.
(I mean, in the real world, I sell the house and all our worldly belongings to save my daughter's life. I also take on a second or third job, as time and availability permits, to increase household revenue. But I'm the human avatar of Washington, remember? I'm Bob Beltway. The mortgage, heating, electricity, and food bills are as untouchable as military spending. And I don't feel that I should NEED to increase revenue through additional jobs. I just want to spend time with my sick daughter, man!)
So what do I do? Tell my daughter that I'm sorry, but we're trying to balance a household budget, and she needs to learn something about shared sacrifice?
No. Fuck THAT. I beg, borrow, scrape, and steal to pay for her cancer treatments. I get handfuls of credit cards all at once. I take out loans from banks. I use my 401k and whatever home equity I have. I go after anyone who might give me money: friend, family, co-worker, or complete stranger.
At no point do I opt for lesser treatments. And I don't worry about the fiscal ramifications on my household budget until much, MUCH later when she's out of the woods, and doctors give her a clean bill of health. There will be plenty of opportunity to settle up in the future, when I don't have to worry quite so much about my daughter's well-being.
At the risk of sounding like a telethon shill, the cancers that effect our country are both literal (lack of health care) and figurative (joblessness and poverty). And the federal government, charged with protecting us, should be bending over backwards to make sure that the citizens of this country aren't subjected to them.
When our politicians trot out the ol' "Household Budget" meme, they're instead suggesting that the things they're cutting are frippery: Cable TV. Ballet lessons. Cell phones with associated data plans. The sort of easy cuts you'd make, in order to balance your own family budget.
But that's about as far from the truth as you can get. They're cutting their daughter's cancer treatments with a shrug of their shoulders, and a feigned look of pain. And if I ran my household in the way that they're proposing they run the federal government, there's no judge alive who WOULDN'T give my wife the divorce and parental custody she'd so richly deserve.