Cut the Fluff, the Fat, and the Bone

Across the nation, liberals and progressives have been sounding out a cry against balancing their budgets with proposed spending cuts. In the NYT yesterday, California (not the most fiscally brilliant State in the Union) was the latest to be highlighted with budget shortfall woes - again. As I read the Times' article, I had to shake my head in utter disgust at the fiscal illiteracy of some of California's politicians. Basically, while the State heads towards bankruptcy, which would then bankrupt the whole Union, California's politicians are squabbling like two and three year-olds all wanting to play with the same toy.

Now essentially there are two ways to settle budget shortfalls. You must cut spending, or increase revenues, which in a government setting, "increasing revenues" means raising taxes. (Unless you are the Federal Government, then you just print more money and devalue the currency.)

Option 1, Cut Spending in economically depressed times: Whether politicians like it or not, spending is the reason why there is a shortfall. If you don't spend money you don't have, you don't have a shortfall. Complicated...I know! The reality is simple, you can't have everything, and secondly, nothing is free. Of course the argument is that spending must occur because there are "essential services" that cannot be compromised. Says who? Again, you cannot have everything, and nothing is free. There are a lot of "essential services" that are nothing more than programs that mask the lack of personal responsibility in the citizenry and promise certain "classes" of people everything they want - all at the expense of debt, deficits, and budget shortfalls.

Option 2, Raise Taxes in economically depressed times: Of all the dumb things you hear politicians pontificate, this ranks at the top of non-brain usage. Let's demand that main street Americans give us more of their money. Never mind that main street Americans are trying to settle shortfalls in their own budgets because of the recession. That's right, let's take more wealth out of the struggling economy and give it to the idiots that produced the shortfalls in the first place! I'm sure they will get it right this time, right? Let's remind ourselves of something, it wasn't main street Americans that created this mess. It is the politicians that mismanaged the budget that created the mess, and now they expect those that had nothing to do with the mess to come in and clean it up? Wow, that is lunacy at it's best.

Unfortunately, while the social liberals and progressives fight against spending cuts, the budget keeps California on a steady march toward insolvency. The budget doesn't care who is from what party, who is rich and who is poor; the budget has no social progressive feelings. Did we not see that in Greece? The point is that unless politicians in California get their intellectual and fiscal act together, California is on track to being the next Greece styled meltdown.

Essentially it boils down to this; if you live beyond your means today, by default, you will live under your means tomorrow.