Huricaine Fat

Finally! Our elected officials are looking for ways to trim fat from the federal budget! Unfortunately it took wiping out an entire city with more now at risk to get them talking.

There's a financial principle that our leaders would be wise to heed. ALWAYS save at least ten percent of your income for emergencies. Had the government been doing this all along we would have had the money in savings to pay for the war in Iraq, and also to pay for the damage Katrina did. Of course, doing this involves actually exercizing some restraint. Financial restraint is not something politicians are good at.

Truth be told it's our own fault that that our elected officials don't exercise financial restraint. We reward them for sending pork barrel projects and the money that comes with them into our states and cities by reelecting them. We punish them for their failure to do so by replacing them. This makes us, the voters the hypocrites for demanding financial restraint from the government as a whole while demanding all the federal money we can get for ourselves from our local representatives. If we are going to get this beast under control we need to be willing to sacrifice for a while.

The spate of huge out-of-the-norm federal expenses over the last five and a half years should be a wake-up call to America that we need to control how our money gets spent more now than ever. We cannot not spend freely to help disaster victims. We cannot not fund a war if we want to win it. Therefore, we cannot spend every penny we get then borrow more when there is no war or disaster sucking up federal funds. To solve this problem I propose the following be put into federal law:

The federal spending budget may not exceed 90% of total revenues at any time. Starting immediately, 5% of revenues will be dedicated to paying back the national debt. All of the remainder shall be saved, only to be used to pay for local disaster relief and wars. Upon repayment of the national debt the funds dedicated to said effort shall be redirected into savings. All federal borrowing, exept as needed to pay for wars or disaster relief shall be frozen until such time as the national debt is paid off. Future borrowing may only be authorized to pay for wars or disaster relief once savings are depleted. Federal spending levels shall be frozen until such time as expenditures no longer exceed 90% of total income.

This will force the federal government to use what it has more wisely until the budget is balanced at 90% of income. This will force our elected officials to look for and eliminate corruption and waste in the beaurocracy. It will also force them to trim out much of the pork. I'm not completely anti-pork myself. Pork can be a real boost to local economies and a real help to state and local governments when things get tough. I just think that we have to keep it under control so it doesn't break the bank. Tell me, is it too much to ask to save the pork barrel for truly important projects and not waste money on frivolous items? I contend that it is not!

Unfortunately, what I have suggested here stands no chance at all of passing the Congress even if we did have a President that I believe would actually sign such a bill into law. We have learned much from the disasters we have faced, but we are not using these lessons to secure our future. I only pray that we wake up in time to act before it's too late.