Do I need it? Do I need it now?

I love jewelry. I love expensive and inexpensive jewelry. I love unusual and classic jewelry. It doesn’t make any difference. I drool over the jewelry counters and feel this enormous need to have what is on display.

Sometimes I justify the purchases. I can give the jewelry as gifts; I deserve the jewelry as a reward for something I’ve accomplished. I need the jewelry to go with an outfit. As my sister says, “accessorize, accessorize.”

There are problems with this type of addiction. My budget is one of them. I have had to learn to cope with the jewelry problem. I have learned to ask my self three important questions that one of my best friends told me about: Do I need it? Do I need it now? What do I have to do without or get rid of if I buy it?

The federal government needs to do a similar assessment of purchases. I understand that it is hard for me to do it and that on the government level it is more difficult. I admire Dr. Robert Gates for his attempt to do that when he told Congress last week that they needed to give him less money.

Pork barrel politics has required that the military buy equipment that they don’t need in order to keep jobs in their states. The federal money could be spent on other job projects instead of airplanes that are not needed. Federally funded contracts could be switched to other projects such as mass transit, infrastructure improvements, and communication innovations.

If Gates feels that there are too many generals, then some of them need to go. I know it is easy for an organization to get top heavy and become bloated with people that are not really needed. A careful assessment of needs must be done, a plan developed and then executed.

What I do not believe is acceptable for the military to do is reduce the salaries and benefits of the soldiers who are fighting on the front line. It hasn’t been long since, the families of soldiers were on food stamps. That is not acceptable. Something else that isn’t acceptable is for us to send our troops into combat with inferior equipment. These are cuts that should not be made.

My son in law is in Afghanistan and my nephew is in Iraq. My father is retired military. I grew up on Air Force bases. I believe in a strong military but not in a bloated military industrial complex. Gates is right about some of the areas that are bloated in the military budget, but he needs to be very careful where he applies the scalpel.