The same old story

For those of you unaware, today marks the end of the federal fiscal year. Supposedly at midnight tonight Fedzilla begains working from the FY2012 budget.

Except there is no such thing yet. Like this fiscal year, where Democrats in charge during 2010 failed to pass an actual budget and counted on continuing resolutions to keep the government going, those inside the Beltway will have to subsist on a continuing resolution or two or three until the budget is finally hammered out – don’t count on that anytime soon because fiscally conscious Republicans only control the House while the Senate and White House are controlled by spendthrift Democrats who never met an entitlement they didn’t like.

To put it mildly, this situation is a complete joke. The federal government only takes in a little more than $2 trillion per year yet continues to act like there’s some sort of giant money tree just waiting to be harvested so folks who are deemed deserving can have part of the “Obama stash.”

It won’t be popular to say but I also contend that many of those on Social Security and Medicare are just as clueless as the hapless inner-city Detroit women portrayed in the radio interview. The amount you have paid into those systems is likely exhausted and now you, too, are living on the “Obama stash.” Truth hurts, doesn’t it?

Even to sunset the program will require a tremendous financial sacrifice on the part of those far too young to collect because we have raised two generations (including mine, sadly) to believe that we are entitled a government check and “free” medical services when we retire. As for me, well, part of the reason I do this writing gig is that it’s not something I wish to retire from. Hopefully as I get older more people will see the wisdom of my ways and I won’t miss the $45,000 or so thus far Social Security has extorted from me – because I have zero expectation of getting it, unless it’s in dollars comparable in worth to Weimar marks.

Tangent to this, one has to ask as well: how many people are completely tapped out after the economic calamities of the last three years? I wasn’t alive during the Great Depression (nor were my parents of an age to understand it since they were born in 1935 and 1940) but I’m pretty convinced we’re going through Great Depression II.

Of course there were people and groups which prospered during the 1930s just as there are now. But too many of them have to do with the government while there are too few success stories in the private sector. All we really need the federal government to do are those things spelled out in the Constitution – betcha if we returned to that standard we’d figure out how to cut the federal budget in half, eventually. Yet I’m convinced a piece of the puzzle we need to add is the sunsetting of entitlement programs.

Another fiscal period comes to a close today as well, which is why I’ve been hearing from a whole lot of politicians over the last week or so. Undoubtedly a strong fundraising quarter will help candidates for office out by either bolstering their chances or perhaps scaring off would-be challengers.

It’s strange, though, that the end of the fundraising quarter seems to be the only time I hear from many of them. I guess that’s the same old story, too – a government in Annapolis and Washington that’s out of touch.

Author: Michael

It's me from my laptop computer.