Budgets

I have to admit, President Obama doesn't just have a full plate, he's working on a five course meal.

Guantanamo, the Auto Industry and Cabinet selections are his appetizers. They're followed by a hearty soup of North Korean missiles, Somalian Pirates and Mexican Drug Wars. His entree is a plate piled high with unemployent, budget, and other assorted economic problems, along with gay marriage and stem cell research. A salad of talks with Cuba, Iran, and Turkey. And for dessert, he has our involvement in two ongoing wars. Condiments are provided by England, France, Germany, Russia and China. And let us not forget, that in the midst of all this, we're going to give money to Haiti.


I think it's time we send Suze Orman to Washington.

As an American, I think it's time I learned more about our nation's budget. I'm not entirely sure that the people I voted into office are accurately representing the budget I'd like to see for our country.

In the first place, I've never heard an exact figure of how much money our federal government is actually collecting. According to Suze Orman, a budget begins with an actual amount of income.

Now some of us believe in tithing and some of us don't, but all good citizens do believe in giving back something, either a financial donation to a charity or volunteer work of some kind. So taking 10% of our federal budget and allocating it for federal charity work is the right thing to do. I'd like to know if giving money to Haiti puts us over the 10% mark or if we have money left to give to other countries.

Spending the rest of our income is a matter of priorities. I think Suze Orman might be helpful with that. She's very good at explaining the difference between a necessity, like housing, and a luxury, like eating out. She's also good at teaching people how to get out of debt and with the recent bailouts, I don't think anybody can deny that we, as a country, are deeply in debt. According to Newt Gingrich, in about two more weeks, we will have spent all the money we are going to collect, for this year.

I'd like to see the news media pay more attention to budgets, federal, state and local. According to Suze Orman, I need to know where all my money is going in order to make an effective budget. We collect taxes and fines and license fees. Where exactly does all that money go? How can an average American see a copy of his or her local, state and federal budgets? How can we tell our representatives where to spend our money if we don't know how much we have and where we're spending it now?

Now I am aware that the federal budget, when printed, could not possibly be delivered to citizens through the U.S. mail. Perhaps Congress could condense it with the help of Suze Orman. If not, then maybe she, or someone else could do a television series that explains the federal budget to the American people. I simply nominate Suze Orman because she has integrity, doesn't owe any back taxes, she isn't in debt. She's trustworthy, as far as I know.

It is the philosophy of this blog, that in order to have a federal budget that is balanced, the American people need to be more involved in getting the job done.

Copyright © 2009 Annette Fortunato

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