Insanity: noun, the US Government

In our government, there are policies and actions that completely defy rational explanation. Our leaders would like us to believe that budget and spending matters are far to complex for us to understand, so we have to trust them to make the right decisions. Please bear with me as I attempt to simplify and summarize these matters:

Assume you work for a large bakery. The CEO decides to tape $20 bills to every $5 loaf of bread sold in select states. He claims it will make people like our bread. The company doesn’t have enough cash on hand to cover the additional cost, so the CEO gets a loan to cover it. The interest on the loan is so huge, he would need to raise price of the bread to cover the loan payments. Instead, he goes out for another loan to cover the interest costs on the first loan, rather than raise prices and lose customers.

One day you see a report from the warehouse that thieves are breaking in and stealing 20% of your goods. The CEO tells you to just ignore it. We will have to increase production and tack the loss on to the price.

Okay, how long do you thing this business will last? At what point do you think the men in white coats with straitjackets will come and take the CEO to a better place?

If you think this is over-simplifying our government’s fiscal policy, take a look at a real-time view of our monetary situation at http://www.usdebtclock.org. I haven’t seen numbers spin that fast since the last time I put fuel in my truck.

For the 2014 budget, Obama wants $3.77 TRILLION. Our federal government will take in $3.03 TRILLION. That leaves some $744 BILLION to be made up with what, borrowed money? Let’s take a snapshot of the spinning numbers. At this moment, we are some $17 TRILLION in debt. The interest alone on the debt is some $2.8 TRILLION – nearly the entire income for the U.S. Government!

Sad, very sad! But wait, it gets even crazier! We give away BILLIONS to nations just so they will like us. Right now Afghanistan is our largest beneficiary at some $2.2 BILLION requested for 2014. Of course, that probably doesn’t include the “black” money the CIA drops off to Karzai every month. Pakistan is the next runner up at $1.6 BILLION and Egypt had been scheduled to get a billion or so. The list goes on …. Obama tells us the foreign aid is merely 1% of the budget. That’s 1% of a $3.77 TRILLION budget! We’re talking BILLIONS of dollars just thrown at countries that don’t even like us. Money we will never see again.

Sure that’s crazy, but what about spending here at home? Watchdog.org recently found that the Internal Revenue Service mailed $4.2 BILLION in child-credit checks to undocumented immigrants. When Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, and Sen. Mike Enzi, R-Wyoming, tried to plug that money leak with a budget amendment Senate Majority leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada cut off debate.

People, our government is certifiably insane! The federal government is so huge we can’t even get an accurate count of how many individually are actually employed by us. The budgetary process uses such muddled accounting methods one can’t get a straight answer on where the money is being spent. Our own legislators look the other way while billions of dollars are simply given to people in our country illegally. We have to borrow money to pay the interest on our debt. And we toss billions of dollars at foreign countries and tell everyone it’s “just” one percent of the budget.

If ANY of this makes sense to you, please give me a call. I’ll sell you the Washington Monument cheap and throw in the Capital building for free. But hurry, before they throw a net over the entire city.