Falling Skies and Gold Watches

Numerous sources point out in one way or another that most things emerging from the Beltway (sequester, gun control) or not (a budget, any budget for the past four years) is little more than kubuki theater.

"The sky is falling! The sky is falling! Squawk! Squawk!"

I cannot believe that people would not demand an end to this nonsense if they understood the numbers in a personal way.

So, to understand the argument over government spending try this:

Google the numbers and chop off eight zeros.

Then one can understand why responsible people will not cooperate with the spendthrifts.

This government's FY 2013 budget numbers are equivalent to an individual having the following:

+ You have $170,000 in unsecured credit card debt, run up by trips to Afghanistan and giving it away to your friends.

+ You are still spending $38,000 a year going on trips and giving it away to friends.

+ But you are only making $29,000 a year, not by actually doing any useful work, like fixing the roads, but by taking it from people who do do useful work and who really are not your friends,

Look dude: you simply cannot, ever, pay off your debt if you make less than you spend...

Obama claims he can. And bemoans the sequester.

Well, on the same terms, this year's cuts of the sequester are equivalent to paying $850.

Yes, a single payment of $850 against a debt of $160,000. Half a penny on the dollar.

A drop in the bucket.

Oooh. I wish I could live my life that way...

And where is it coming from?

Obama shouts:

Aircraft carriers!

Babies!

Octogenarians!

I can tell you, as a former budgeteer, that inside the Beltway that is referred to as a Gold Watch.

It is a time-worn budgeting tactic used by immature and inexperienced (and incompetent, dishonest, immoral, and irresponsible) budgeteers.

It goes like this:

"If I charge the cut against their favorite thing, their gold watch, their mother's wedding ring, their unborn child, their firstborn son, then surely they will surrender."

The answer from anyone who has any experience whatsoever with this sort of nonsense, of course, is:

"You idiot.

"Knock yourself out. Go ahead. Make my day.

"And THEN see who gets the blame."

=====

Following the eight-zeroes analysis above, look at the following chart FROM THE CONGRESSIONAL BUDGET OFFICE

 
of the spending projections both with and without the sequester.

It won't make a bit of difference.

It's all hyperbolic feelgood political correctness, designed by amateurs to make a crisis out of nothing but token incompetence, magnified by their indolence and viciousness.

People of the Lie.

So fire them all.

 We need term limits (three terms max) and a flat tax.