The Budget Process - how much are the paper clips?

And so begins again the nonsensical annual practice known as the congressional budget cutting process, an oxymoron if ever there was one. It ultimately does little more than demonstrate and highlight the absolute ineptitude and chicanery inherent in the officials currently entrusted with the nations purse strings. Only in government would a program that was intended to receive a ten percent increase have that endowment cut to only a five percent increase would it be trumpeted as a five percent cut. Members from all facets of the political spectrum gravely intone in front of an array of microphones that cutting entire programs would result in various stages of Armageddon for that programs recipients. The final budget proposal is then heralded as a triumph of responsible spending, and that the hard choices have been made to put the nation on the road to financial health.

As the saying goes – hardee har har.

This process has now resulted in a fourteen trillion dollar debt. Obviously, changes need to be made, and the changes are both easily attainable, and ultimately practical. Just ask any small business owner.

There is little doubt amongst the electorate that there is sufficient income generated in this country to provide for the essential processes of government. What no elected official has yet to present, however, is the actual operating cost of government. Any small business owner can tell you exactly what their operating costs are, from their utility costs to how much they spend on paper clips. This critical information is what affords them the opportunity to achieve the intended goal of being profitable. Any business that does not know their operating costs is not long for the yellow pages. Yet nobody in government looks at what it actually costs to run the government. The budgetary process merely looks at cutting or adding to each year’s allocations, without looking to see the true bottom line. Politicians talk of budget surpluses; how can there be a ‘surplus’ when there is debt to be paid, interest on that debt to be serviced? The actual concept of a budget ‘surplus’ should be an affront to the electorate; it is THEIR money. Any money the government does not need to function should be returned to that electorate. The budget can easily be brought into balance, but what that balance truly is must first be determined by obtaining the facts relative to the operation of the bureaucracy.

The government needs to know what it is spending in paper clips.

It is the peoples’ money; not the governments.