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March 27, 2009

In our view: Spending or saving?

Anonymous The Joplin Globe Fri Mar 27, 2009, 11:25 PM CDT

Every household must address this issue. Do we buy a TV on credit or save until we have the funds to pay cash?

For decades, we as individuals and collectively through our government, have opted for “instant gratification” and gotten the TV now rather than wait. In our view, that, more than any other single issue, is the root cause of our economic mess.

President Obama articulated a wonderful vision of what America could be. Unfortunately, he must figure out a way to pay for it. He had a clear mandate to bring that vision into reality. We wonder just how long that mandate will last. It is getting pretty thin very early in the process.

Candidate Obama clearly stated that he would go “line by line over the budget” to reduce government spending. We are waiting for him to fulfill that promise.

Imagine, if you will, a president who came into office and first cut government spending. He ignored credit and attempted to build his programs from money saved. What if he demanded and received first a line-item veto authority before submitting a budget based on his credit card? Now that for sure would be change.

Most households tally up income (all of it) then construct a budget to match. Try to increase income or cut spending to make it come out to zero at the bottom of the page. Interest on debt amortization is included in that tally.

We are all arguing right now about how much spending we can sustain. What if instead we argued about how much savings we can endure and defer the spending for later? Show us some real cuts, Mr. President and all of you elected officials representing us. In times like these, leaders should force us to agree to reduce our “cravings” for new TVs before we rush out and buy one.

Would you like to turn things around? Try the above approach. Now that would be standing on long-forgotten principles for all of us.

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