A Tale of Two Advisors
February 16, 2011 2 Comments
BECKLEY — There is a family that earns about $100,000 annually. They do pretty good for their size and live a nice life.
There has been one problem. This family spends more then they make and has been for quite some time they’ve accumulated about $670,000 in debt. Furthermore, the husband has promised to take care of his parents, his wifes parents, and there grandparents (none of which has saved for their medical needs and income needs) this will probably cost around $5,000,000 which includes all their prespcriptions, the new gene therepy (extending their lives substantially), the heart surgery for his father, hip replacement for his wifes mother, and the cancer her father will get at 73. Currently, they’re spending about $60,000 more then then they make and obviously not saving for any of these promises. What should they do?
A little worried the family elects two advisors to help them resolve what must surely be a serious problem. The first advisor Mr. Republican says, “You need to reduce your spending.” This seems logical to the family so they ask where they should cut that spending from and how much. Mr. Republican responds, “You should reduce your spending by $2,720 annually from random odd places. This is a big step in the right direction.”
The family then looks to their second advisor Mr. Democrat and ask what they should do. Mr Democrat says, “Times are tough right now there is a lot of uncertainity and you really should keep spending to stimulate your economy. Things will recover then your income will increase to catch up to your spending.”
The family is happy! They will sit down and vote on which path to take thankful they live in a system that allows them to repeatedly have such choices as these two great advisors one on the right and one on the left.
NOTE: The above story is fictional; however the ratio’s hold true. Today we’re seeing this same grand debate over the same ratios. Government spending is of course not in the $160,000 range but in the $3,500,000,000,000 (thats trillion) range. The GOP is making a big show over cutting spending by $60 Billion or a mere 1.7%. The same equivalent for my fictional families spending cuts of $2,750. It’s really meaningless. If the family isn’t going to make the hard choices eventually the banks and creditors will.
The Democrats on the other hand are oddly trying to hold the line. I’m not sure of the politics here a mere $60 Billion dollar cut is basically nothing. Obama and crew could jump on it and be the great compromisers.
Republican’s on the other hand are playing games. They can propose whatever they want (meaningless as it is). If Obama joins up they can try to spin that as a win or if Obama veto’s they win because he’s the party of “no”.
What does this mean? It means that the winner gets re-elected because they played politics well (NOT because they did anything meaningful).
Meanwhile America is the family in the middle with two advisors playing games to get re-elected, voting Republican and Democrat and thinking we’ve got such a good system and such good choices.
About The Freedom Thinker
And your advice to the family/America would be ……. ?
Stop trying to use the scalpel.
Actually, I support the Republican’s spending cuts fully. I just think they need to do more. It seems like they’re gearing up for that but at the same time it seems like to much politics and to little action. It doesn’t really matter because it’s not going to pass the Senate and Obama will veto it. It seems like to me they should propose more as they won’t have to “answer” for anything anyways since it will all be vetoed. Maybe they’re testing to see where the rank and file big spender Republicans sit on issues of spending cuts.
I worry though that if this is all they can get consensus on in the house then when they’re actually able to make cuts and then actually be responsible for those cuts and the changes they bring then will they be able to put together a coalition even among their own.