The message was very clear to me last night in President Obama's
State of the Union Address - America is living way beyond its means.
I think his exact words were ...we can not keep spending more money
than we take in. That sound like very simple math to me but it is so
much more complicated than just numbers because there are people,
trade-offs, entitlements, allocations, designated fundings, appropriations,
and many other expense line items involved as well as differening political
agendas and expectations.
The President deserves kudos for telling America that his Administration
is going the tackle the IRS Code in efforts to make the current tax burden
equitable across the board. He said that America's Budget will be made
available for viewing by the public on line. He also said that his
Administration will tackle the Budget Deficit through expense control but
he did not further elaborate. I anxiously await further details on his Plan
to reduce deficit spending.
I support the President's efforts but think that much more work needs
to be done. Rheotoric is not going balance our severly tipped budget - act
will make a difference. Making hard choices and trade-offs, performing
analytics, critically reviewing all of the expense budget items including
entitlements and cutting expenses as deemed necessary will help. We
also need to carefully analyze the revenue or income production side of
the budget. Are we as a nation realizing our full share of revenue - -
I do not mean domestically by raising any taxes. I am talking about
trade and transfer payments and other business transactions and payments
outside of the US and taxes on those businesses that operate in the US.
This is a much broader question.
We as Americans need to do our part to ensure our own Financial Literacy.
The problems evidenced at the national level bespeak similar problems
at the individual, family, corporate and state levels. While America is
struggling to come to terms with analyzing its budget in the hope of
achieving balance, we should all use this as an opportunity to review our
own budgets (personal, family, business, etc) to see what expenses we can do
without or minimize and see where we can be more effective in saving
for our future goals.
Sheila McKinney
