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Another Perspective
Sequestration Hits Home
Is it an answer to bloated family budgets?
A friend tells me he is sick and tired of living by a strict budget. So, he’s decided to model his family’s budget on the federal budget format.
He explained to me how simple the transition would be. First, he develops a budget with line-items that cover the essentials — mortgage payments, routine household expenses, car payments, real estate taxes, college tuition, and so on.
But, the family’s real overall budget folds in additional spending for the household equivalent of “earmarks,” those special line items lobbied for by family members without which family harmony would be a mere pipe dream. For example, his wife’s earmark for a 10-day Caribbean cruise, the 2013 model SUV, and 30-foot sailboat he wants to buy, and the kids’ demand for a premiere, week-long visit to Disney World, as well as a dedicated, “kids only” 42-inch flat screen TV for their playroom.
My friend knows full well that the family’s combined income won’t come close to covering all the expenditures. And, he knows that whatever raises and year-end bonus he might receive won’t possibly cover the yawning deficit spending gap.
Sure, his wife works part-time, but her meager contribution to the family income won’t be enough to keep their finances in the black. Nonetheless, he is still confident that he can manage the family’s bloated budget… with a little Washington-style gimmickry.
So, every year he rolls out what he calls the Family Budget Sequester Plan, deep, automatic, across-the-board cuts in discretionary spending. These cuts can’t be avoided. All discretionary spending line items are on the table and subject to deep cuts. The overall goal is to rein in spending and reduce the family’s overall debt from prior years of budgetary excesses.
This year the automatic sequester will eliminate spending on the Caribbean cruise, the Disney World vacation, and the kids’ new 42-inch flat screen. Meanwhile, the 2013 SUV and 30-foot sailboat have been reclassified as “essential expenditures,” designed to help relieve the oppressive job stress my friend faces.
My friend has also determined that the Disney trip and 42-inch flat screen would undermine the children’s attention to their studies and therefore should continue to be classified as discretionary expenditures, ripe for elimination. As for his wife’s argument that the Caribbean cruise should be spared from the sequester axe on the same “relief from job stress” theory, my friend contends that homemaking isn’t stressful, but rather “a life-changing experience filled with complexity and opportunity.” The jury’s still out on his family harmony in the wake of that rather risky assertion.
My friend’s wife says his “sequestration” plan is nonsense. She calls his plan “smoke and mirrors” budget gimmickry and warns that the cold realities of household finances will catch up with them eventually and may even put them into bankruptcy. She argues that to “live within their means,” the family budget should simply cover all expenses if they are reasonably foreseeable, without resorting to the painful sequestration exercise imposing automatic, across-the-board cuts with a budgetary meat axe.
He responds that, in the event of a “revenue shortfall,” the family could always borrow or simply rely on the time-honored government artifice of “deficit spending” by maxing out on all their credit cards. In response to his argument that they could get a “bridge loan” or a “debt consolidation loan” to cover those discretionary items on the sequestration hit list, his wife forcefully reminds him that they have already taken out a home equity loan to cover college tuition and emergency roof repairs.
“We have mortgaged our entire future already,” she grumbles. “Why, I may have to exercise my line-item veto once again to restore some fiscal responsibility around here.” She pauses, and then adds with a twinkle in her eye, “Of course, that veto will only apply to the boat and the SUV. The Caribbean cruise and Disney World trip clearly are essential family expenditures.”
All in all, it seems budgetary arguments always to boil down to whose special family interest “pork” is getting whacked in the sequester process.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (29) | Leave a comment
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benny havens| 2.22.13 @ 7:06AM
Let’s put it in perspective, draw a 3-inch circle and within that circle put a pencil dot.
The circle represents the $3.5 trillion that Obama will spend and the pencil dot is the sequestration.
Yes, this is to scale.
The hysteria from this president and his cronies is laughable.
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Appleby| 2.22.13 @ 7:33AM
Which one of the Louis was it who said "Apres moi, le deluge"? That's Obama.
SUBVET| 2.22.13 @ 9:50AM
It amounts to 1 1/2 cents of the dollar......more lies....I say let it come and see what happens.
TLP| 2.22.13 @ 10:12AM
Louis DePalma?
Goldwater Girl| 2.22.13 @ 10:18AM
Louis L'Amour. You know, that french dude
SUBVET| 2.22.13 @ 10:26AM
Boy ...........tim your allover the place this morning..........
TLP| 2.22.13 @ 10:56AM
It's called: Winter.
It's also called: No Life.
How's it goin out there in the future Chinese Province of Ras Anjurus?
And, thanks, as always for all that stuff you send me.
I pass it along to Albert, KJack, Joellen, and the Eskimo.
Joellen told me that She made "The difference between Baltimore and San Fransisco Fans" into her Homepage on her Computer.
True Story.
SUBVET| 2.22.13 @ 2:01PM
Tim ........now that's funny.....so peggy sue is here on the WC.....and she left you with the boys ?
BTW.....# 1 son is on a current commercial on ESPN for Dick's Sporting Goods. He plays the second baseman. All that $ I paid for BB and he's on TV. He also had parts on moneyball. Maybe one day he will be able to payoff his student loans.
TLP| 2.22.13 @ 3:23PM
Wow.
Good for him.
Do you know if he can get me a Free set of Taylor Made Gold Clubs and a Shotgun?
Cause, if he can't?
Tell him I hate him.
Kwan| 2.22.13 @ 9:52AM
Reality disassemblers in the latest Democratic Party propaganda blitzkrieg would have rational citizens believe that if 25 cents is cut from the federal budget unparalleled calamities would beset the nation. This nonsense should be categorized as the ravings of leftist kooks and ignored. While Obama continues to sell the fallacy to the saps, suckers, and morons that Big Government is the solution to the nations problems, the fact is that Big Government is the cause of the nations problems.
TLP| 2.22.13 @ 10:48AM
Mr. Kwan. First, let me say that you spelled "Calamity Jane" wrong.
Second: We cannot survive with Baseline Budgeting, a Progressive Tax System, (Communist Manifesto, along with the Inheritence Tax, and the Government Ownership of the Land) No Budgets, and No intention of doing anything to even Slow Down the Free Fall, let alone End It.
You don't have to be in a Wheelchair, Curled up in a ball, and Communicating with others via Keypad and a Speaker, to know that: Unless this Halfrican Homo has a Philosopher's Stone in his Rectum, for the Gerbils to sit on? We're on Course to be Timbuktu.
We need a Flat Tax, with EVERBODY paying.
We need to Get Rid of all of the deductions, EXCEPT the Charitable ones.
We need to have the Lowest Corporate Tax Rates, not the Highest.
We need Capital Hains to be 0.
We need to ditch the Death Tax, and Baseline Budgeting.
We need to open up EVERYWHERE for Drilling.
We need a REAL CUT, across the board, on EVERYTHING. What does President Death Spiral call it? Oh, yeah: SHARED SACRIFICE.
We need to get the Teachers Unions out of the Schools, and the Faculty Lounge Pointy Head never had a job in my life Beurocrats, out of Business' Face.
TLP| 2.22.13 @ 10:49AM
I spelled "Baseball" wrong.
Kwan| 2.22.13 @ 11:40AM
You spelled "Capitol Grains" wrong.
It takes a large stretch of the imagination not to believe that everything Obama and the left are doing is not intended to harm the nation. Needless to say your ideas would pull the nation out of the Death Spiral that these leftist jihadists currently have the nation in, but a plague of ignorance has infected the electorate. Like the Muslim rats that cheered as the Twin Towers collapsed, these mindless Obama voters seem to want the jug-eared Kenyan boy-wonder to bring about the collapse of the nation while they clap and cheer. Reminds me of those ghetto riots in Detroit in the 60's when they burned down their own neighborhoods and places were they shopped.
TLP| 2.22.13 @ 12:06PM
Don't you mean: Crapitol Grains?
Cause, I'm thinkin that you do.
Sixgun| 2.23.13 @ 3:11AM
Actually you spelled "flat tire" wrong
TLP| 2.23.13 @ 4:30PM
Welcome aboard.
And, No, I didn't spell "Abroad" "A Broad" or "A Board" wrong.
But, you're still Half Right.
I did spell "Fat Whore" wrong.
Sixgun| 2.23.13 @ 3:10AM
Wow... dead on accurate TLP (sorry for the uncivil language of a gun metaphor). If I budget $10 a day on lunch and Sequester my lunch money like Washington does it, that means I would reduce my spending on lunch to $9.80 per diem. I don't think that would mean the end of the world. I can't stomach Obozo for 4 more years.
TLP| 2.23.13 @ 4:33PM
Nobody can.
Hardcard| 2.22.13 @ 11:50AM
That was Louis Costello, applelady. Who spelled baseball wrong? It's Who's on first base?
Oldefarte| 2.22.13 @ 3:38PM
Today's news about the Transportation Secretary crying that airports will become disrupted by sequestration cuts is putridly sickening. When that moronic, incompetitent excuse of a POTUS gets off his lazy ars and starts governing [instead of obtaining golfing tips from Tiger, or maybe DATING TIPS instead], maybe these type problems can be averted. What a sorry excuse for an administrator he is [of course when your only experience is that of a chicago community organizer teaching fraudent voting activities, what should be expected?]!!!!!!!!!!!!
Oldefarte| 2.22.13 @ 3:46PM
Oh and as to budgeting and sequestration cuts, we should all follow the Democrats' model of encouraging our constituents to go forth and have as many illegitimate children as possible so as to obtain the maximum in FREE [to them that is, not to the taxpayers who pay for same]governmental benefits as possible, thereby running up the governmental defecit and then calling for increasied taxiation of millionaires/billionaires [anyone with a job/income] to pay for same. What budget you say? As Alfred E. Newman says, WHAT ME WORRY????????????????
Oldefarte| 2.22.13 @ 3:53PM
Oh as to sequestration cuts hitting home, I hope and pray that it blows the hades out of the budgets of the Democrats' constituents and leaves them with the taxpayer funded bus transportation, free meals, free housing, free energy, free food stamps, free insurance, and yes free Obama-Phones. As Clint once said, GO AHEAD AND MAKE MY DAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
AllAmericanAmerican| 2.22.13 @ 5:55PM
Da Pres gets his dating tips from Anderson Cooper.
TLP| 2.23.13 @ 4:40PM
I'm told that he's Teabagging Reggie Love, as we speak.
homme nike air max BW | 2.22.13 @ 10:57PM
theory, my friend contends that homemaking isn’t stressful, but rather “a life-changing experience filled with complexity and opportunity.” The jury’s still out on his family harmony in the wake of that rather risky assertion.
gazinya | 2.23.13 @ 8:36AM
Yes, you can see it. I can see it and many others can see it. The 'IT' being the absurdity of trying to live 'within' the fantasy world of debt. We see that a good policy is 'debt free' or the Biblical suggestion, 'To no man be a debtor. For he will own you.' There are no 'good policy' or 'Biblical' people in our Government. There are not enough of the 'good and Biblical' people who won't vote for these 'devilish' politicans. I can see it. You can see it.
TLP| 2.23.13 @ 4:41PM
You spelled "Gonzaga" wrong.
FiddlerBob| 2.24.13 @ 11:09AM
Our national "family" needs to draw a circle around the eighteen enumerated powers and duties required of the Federal Government. Everything program or function that falls outside of that line needs to be "sequestered" or moved to the States who have the actual Constitutional authority to maintain or dissolve it.