Govern Point – Critical Thinking: Politics and Culture

“Things will continue to be normal” mantra is a charade that must stop. Decision-makers and the public need to be educated about the trade-offs that result from allocating fewer resources than required to maintain service levels.

As the debate continues in Congress about lowering the budget deficit, the debt ceiling is about to be raised again. Because the dollar is still one of the world’s most important reserve currencies, US budget deficits and the Fed’s balance sheet contribute enormously to the world’s debt load. Here are a couple of do-able suggestions to lower the US deficit.

The current state of the economy is such that it has been stretched for 3 consecutive quarters. In the initial 3 months of the year gone by, the system of finance developed at a yearly rate of 3.2% that was adjusted seasonally.

Well what’s next? I took an hour before breakfast Sunday morning, balanced the US budget and solved the US debt crisis. Of course I’m being facetious – a little. I printed out and scored the 37 ‘cost’ accounts in the 2009 GAO ‘United States Government Financial Statement’. I’ve included the link for the full financial report at bottom of this blog. If you read the section ‘Management’s Discussions and Analysis’, it paints a dire future of a government out of control and unsustainable. Minor adjustments on growth and the political bickering doesn’t help. A major structural change has to happen. Here we go….. The bottom line is, of the 37 cost accounts on page 45 only 15 can be justified as legitimate Federal powers under the original intent of the US Constitution. Which means of the $3.7 trillion in Gross Costs, only $1.5 trillion is legitimate. The Revenues for 2009 were roughly $2.4 trillion which means the federal operating loss for 2009 was $1.3 trillion which is added to the national debt each year – $14.7 trillion at this writing.

To a majority of Europeans and in the future Japanese, a new buzzword has dominated the national news- austerity. Austerity measures are now a vital fact of life as many governments start tackling their national debts. What is an austerity package?

A recession unleashes an enormous force of change. It’s also part of a natural business cycle, so we always know that one is coming, and after that, there will be more prosperity. Here are some practical ideas to ride out the storm and turn it into your advantage.

The recent poor weather across Europe has brought local and central government budget strains into clear focus. However, recovering lost tax revenue might provide a much need safety blanket.

What do Dunkin” Donuts and Public Libraries Have in Common? In these tough economic times they are both experiencing higher demand for their products and services! It is interesting how demand for certain products and services increases in difficult times.

President Obama is looking to add billions of dollars to U.S. Tax coffers by removing the Foreign Earned Income Exemption. Stay abreast of the latest information that develops about the foreign earned income exclusion.

Alistair Darling, the chancellor of the United Kingdom delivered a brutal budget on Wednesday 22nd April 2009. He fully admitted to the scale of problems that the country is facing and stated that we are in a deep recession (I think we all knew that). For me there was one particular aspect of his speech which made the whole thing laughable and also deplorable – the guy is quite simply a joke, I will explain more in this article.