Monitor the spending

While on vacation with my daughter and grandchildren this summer, I kept my budget under close scrutiny. When my daughter would use her debit card to pay for something, my son-in-law called her and would ask her what she had bought. He didn’t have a problem with her spending the money, he wanted to live the experience with her. Everyday, he would ask her what the expense was for and asked her to tell him about what we had done. He couldn’t go with us because he was serving our nation in Afghanistan so he would call every evening using some cheap international plan. He was actively monitoring the spending even from Afghanistan.

He and my daughter both check their checking account balance almost every day. They have a check and balance system to make sure that they stay in their budget.

It would be appropriate for someone to monitor the spending of the country. I listened to an economist yesterday who indicated there is real concern that the federal government will have to make decisions about bailing out state and local governments within the next year. The federal government is spending like crazy, unconcerned about where the money is going to come from.

If the bailout of state and local governments becomes an issue as expected, the government cannot raise taxes (taxes are expected to increase automatically as the Bush Tax cuts expire at the end of the year) and it is not wise to borrow more money from China. This tax increase will place a heavy burden on those who are only surviving by a frog’s hair and will reduce spending by the middle class. Reduced spending by the middle class will result in more jobs being lost.

President Obama’s stimulus plan is not working. The president and congress need to put more effort into stimulating business. I know from personal experience that I cannot borrow my way out of financial problems and I cannot spend my way to solvency. The people controlling our financial future, are not monitoring the balance sheet and the bottom line. They should take lessons from my daughter and her husband. When the cash runs low, they should stop spending and they should never spend without making sure that the money is going where it is suppose to be going. The government should also look at increasing its income by increasing jobs that are not paid for by the government.