The Appearance of Wealth

“Hi Dad, it’s me your wayward child. Um, I have a little money problem.”

“Okay, my wayward child, what’s the problem?”

“I’m running a deficit of $10,000.”

“My goodness child, how in the world did you get yourself in such a mess?!”

“Well Dad, basically I’m spending more money than I’m taking in.”

“Well of course you are my child, so what are you doing to cut some of your spending?”

“I’ve decided to stop buying a bottle of pop every week. That will save me $1.25 each week for a total savings of $67 this year. So can you help me with the rest?”

You’re thinking to yourself, no way if I’m the father of that spendthrift am I going to help that financial fool, even if he or she is my child.

Actually you are.

In the little parable above the father is the US taxpayer and the child is Speaker of the House John Boehner.

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimate total spending to be 3.7 trillion dollars with revenues of 2.2 trillion meaning we the taxpayer is facing a deficit of 1.5 trillion dollars, that’s with 11 zeros.

So of course, with much fanfare, the Speaker on his website announced that the vote on the latest continuing resolution “will bring us to $10 billion in cuts in just five weeks – with more cuts to come.” Are we going to forego two extra sodas a week Mr. Speaker?

Saving 10 billion dollars when we are running 1.5 trillion dollar deficit is a savings of .67%, which is .0067. So Speaker Boehner is basically deciding to not buy a bottle of pop a week to overcome a $10,000 personal deficit.

Someone is playing the fool, the question is: who?

“No one is so miserable as the poor person who maintains the appearance of wealth.”– Charles Spurgeon

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