When Clinton left office, the country was running on surplus budgets. Rather than using those surpluses to reduce the debt, Bush chose to institute tax cuts, and give the money back to the taxpayers. Whether the meltdown was Bush's fault is irrelevant (for the purposes of this post). It happened on his watch, and it is what Obama inherited. Now people are upset that Obama is not resolving the situation fast enough, while still requiring that he play by Bush's rules.
The government is not a business. Businesses, if they want to stay in business, do what they need to maximize profit. That is not the government's role. In this context, the government's role (in my opinion) is to promote the general welfare. And if that means that the government needs to keep people from starving (food stamps), and it needs to be done on the cuff instead of from a surplus, so be it. But what about charity? Couldn't we citizens take care of our own? Yes, probably, but at what personal cost? Would you be willing to disavow your Christianity in order to feed your family? And regardless of your answer, do you now understand the non-Christian's angst when going to the Christian charity to feed his family? The right calls Obama "the food stamp President", as if it's a bad thing; I look at the same set of facts and say, "thank God."
Back to the economy; pretend that you are living your life. You have some debt, sure, but nothing you can't handle. You make plans with the wife, "we're going to knock this debt out and live on the square." Then your pay gets cut (Bush tax cuts). But you still want to get rid of the debt. So you rearrange the budget, and things look bad, but not horrible. Then, after the pay cut, your hours get cut (the recession). You are now, to a large extent, living on your credit card. And where you turned the steak into hamburger, and the hamburger into beans and rice, you're still living on the credit card, but for some reason your biggest concern is reducing your credit card debt.
Then, you get a job interview, and it's a sure thing. This new job will increase your pay substantially; maybe not enough to stop the bleeding, but enough to apply a tourniquet, and then you can work from there. The only problem is that you don't have enough gas to get to the interview. Sure, you have enough credit to fill your tank, but you've already said that you're not going into any more debt. Period. So do you pass on the sure thing that will make your life better because it would mean more debt, do you say "I like this whole starving and dying a slow death" thing? Or do you do what you know is the best thing for your family under the circumstances?
Your choice, it's a free country.
Back to the analogy: Right after you took the pay cut (Bush tax cuts), the wife had a baby. An "oops" baby which you named Afghanistan, but there it is. Then, you convinced each other that the best thing was to have another on purpose. This one you named Iraq. Now, your "family expenditures" budget (defense) couldn't accommodate them, so you decided to pay for them out of your rainy day fund. Which consists of a credit card.
Iraq is grown and gone, and Afghanistan is leaving soon. But in the meantime, you still have bills to pay, and the wife is complaining about the credit card debt. When you say "I'll just go back to getting paid what I was getting before", she says you're an idiot and a loser. But she keeps on about the credit card debt (which she was more than happy to agree to, before it was spent.). She wants to cut the household budget to pay for the credit card debt. All you want is a freaking tank of gas to get to the interview, but apparently that would be too much.
Then she says, "There's this guy at church I've been talking to. He says that our problems will be solved if we just take another 20% pay cut. He says that if we take the additional pay cut, we'll get enough hours to make up the difference AND get rid of the credit card debt."
You scratch your head and say "Do what?! How is that going to work?"
And she says "Well, he's only going to tell me after I move in with him and turn over the household finances. But it sounds really good. By the way, Afghanistan might be sticking around a little longer than we thought. And our family expenditures budget, even though we're supporting our kids out of the rainy day fund, will be going up higher than it's ever been before. Remember sweet little Korea, and Cold War, and Viet Nam? Well, our family expenditures budget will be higher than when we were paying for any of those kids, even though I'm not pregnant. And we're going to be giving money to the neighbor kids, but only if they think the same way we do. But we're still going to be okay and come out of this smelling like a rose. It would all be okay, if you weren't such a loser."
And you still don't have your tank of gas.
Who is who in this analogy? You are the husband, you are the wife. You're even the guy she's been talking to at church. We are all all of this. Welcome to America.
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