OPINION: Addressing the financial gerbil in the room

CommerceNewsTODAY

RSS Feed

Email Alerts

Facebook

OPINION: Addressing the financial gerbil in the room

Posted by

Mark Beardsley

in Opinions

Friday, February 25. 2011

Comment (1)

It’s hard to know what to think as the Republican majority in the House of Representatives takes up the issue of trimming government spending.

We need spending cuts. We want spending cuts, but that’s about all we agree on. Like a 500-pound man who’s put on 25 pounds a year and sees reducing the annual weight gain to 20 pounds as a victory, much is being made of the GOP plan to trim spending by $100 billion.

It will not cut the national debt. It would be a reversal of a dangerous trend of increasing the annual deficit, but fairly miniscule in the big picture. It would be more of a feel-good action to make us think fiscal restraint is taking hold. It’ll be a great talking point for political campaigns.

A recent cartoon in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution captured the real issue, however. Mike Luckovich pictured President Obama surrounded by three huge elephants, one entitled Defense, another Medicare/Medicaid and the third Social Security. Also pictured was a tiny rodent entitled “discretionary spending.” The cartoon has Obama saying, “For too long, we’ve ignored the gerbil in the room.”

Obama is not the only politician ignoring the elephants in the room. Any long-term reversal in government fiscal irresponsibility will have to address those “elephants” through spending cuts and tax increases, but instead of specific proposals to cut Medicare/Medicaid and Social Security or raise taxes to fund them, or to cut defense spending, the only items subject to be cut are discretionary spending.

That’s the 500-pound man deciding to reduce his intake of steamed carrots to lose weight. Big deal.

Yet the battle to cut that $100 billion threatens to shut down the government. Whatever the House finally manages to do is subject to approval by the Senate and the president, and it’s shaping up to be a huge battle the likes of which we haven’t seen outside of a presidential election, generating endless amounts of partisan rhetoric, doomsday scenarios and keeping the talking heads on TV and the bloggers frothing furiously. Over a statistically minor amount of money, given the scope of our budgetary mess …

If dealing with the gerbil in the room generates that kind of confrontation, what chance do we have of cutting those elephants down to size?

In 2010, discretionary spending amounted to 35.2 percent of the federal budget. Mandatory spending — Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare, interest on the federal debt, took 64.8 percent. That’s money not subject to congressional approval. Take defense spending out of the discretionary portion, and the area from which Congress expects to slash spending is a very small slice — about 15 percent — of the total budget. A little more than fiscal steamed carrots, I’d say.

Mark Beardsley is the editor of The Commerce News. He lives in Commerce.

Trackbacks

Trackback specific URI for this entry

No Trackbacks

Comments

Display comments as (Linear | Threaded)

#1 Anonymous on 03/06/11 at 10:00 AM [Reply]

Think this might work !!

Subject: A gas boycott.

We'll show you a gas boycott!

THIS IS NOT THE 'DON'T BUY' GAS FOR ONE DAY, BUT IT WILL SHOW YOU HOW WE CAN GET GAS BACK DOWN TO $1.30 PER GALLON.

This was sent by a retired Coca Cola executive. It came from one of his engineer buddies who retired from Halliburton. If you are tired of the gas prices going up AND they will continue to rise this summer, take time to read this please.

Phillip Hollsworth offered this idea:

This makes MUCH MORE SENSE than the "don't buy gas on a certain day" campaign that was going around last April or May!

It's worth your consideration. Join the resistance!!!!

I hear we are going to hit close to $4.00 a gallon by next summer and it might go higher!! Want gasoline prices to come down?

We need to take some intelligent, united action. The oil companies just laughed at that because they knew we wouldn't continue to "hurt" ourselves by refusing to buy gas.

It was more of an inconvenience to us than it was a problem for them. BUT, whoever thought of this idea, has come up with a plan that can really work. Please read on and join with us!

By now you're probably thinking gasoline priced at about $2.00 is super cheap. Me too! It is currently $3.08 at Arco and Costco for regular unleaded in Salem , Oregon and climbing every week.

Now that the oil companies and the OPEC nations have conditioned us to think that the cost of a gallon of gas is CHEAP at $1.50 - $1.75, we need to take aggressive action to teach them that BUYERS control the marketplace, not sellers.

With the price of gasoline going up more each day, we consumers need to take action .

The only way we are going to see the price of gas come down is if we hit someone in the pocketbook by not purchasing their gas! And, we can do that WITHOUT hurting ourselves.

How? Since we all rely on our cars, we can't just stop buying gas.

But we CAN have an impact on gas prices if we all act together to force a price war.

Here's the idea: For the rest of this year, DON'T purchase ANY gasoline from the two biggest companies (which now are one), EXXON and MOBIL.

If they are not selling any gas, they will be inclined to reduce their prices. If they reduce their prices, the other companies will have to follow suit.

But to have an impact, we need to reach literally millions of Exxon and Mobil gas buyers. It's really simple to do! Now, don't wimp out on me at this point...keep reading and I'll explain how simple it is to reach millions of people!!

I am sending this note to 30 people. If each of us send it to at least ten more (30 x 10 = 300) ... and those 300 send it to at least ten more (300 x 10 = 3,000)... and so on, by the time the message reaches the sixth group of people, we will have reached over THREE MILLION consumers . If those three million get excited and pass this on to ten friends each, then 30 million people will have been contacted!

If it goes one level further, you guessed it...... THREE HUNDRED MILLION PEOPLE!!!

Again, all you have to do is send this to10 people. That's all!

(If you don't understand how we can reach 300 million and all you have to do is send this to10 people.... Well, let's face it, you just aren't a mathematician. But I am so trust me on this one.

How long would all that take? If each of us sends this e-mail out to ten more people within one day of receip t, all 300 MILLION people could conceivably be contacted within the next 8 days!

I'll bet you didn't think you and I had that much potential, did you! Acting together we can make a difference. Look at what happened in Egypt just recently.

You have only the rights you are willing to fight for!

Be kind, remove all email addresses & use bcc when forwarding; say no to spammers and computer viruses.

You may trash this if you wish, but it sounds like it would work if everyone would send it on to those in your address book.....It's very "workable" for everyone...I've sent it on to more than 30 people....You decide what you want to do.......

Add Comment

Name
Email
Homepage
In reply to
Comment: E-Mail addresses will not be displayed and will only be used for E-Mail notifications.

To prevent automated Bots from commentspamming, please enter the string you see in the image below in the appropriate input box. Your comment will only be submitted if the strings match. Please ensure that your browser supports and accepts cookies, or your comment cannot be verified correctly.

Enter the string from the spam-prevention image above:
Phone*

What is seven minus five?
: Remember Information? Subscribe to this entry
: Submitted comments will be subject to moderation before being displayed.

Community

Commerce Community

OPINION: Addressing the financial gerbil in the room

CommerceNewsTODAY

OPINION: Addressing the financial gerbil in the room

Recent Stories

Recent Comments

Sister Sites

Archives

Community

Keyword Tags