The Sage Observer

Government Spending

          I know this is one whale of a subject to cover in an essay of a few hundred words. I also know my knowledge of the subject is limited–limited for more reasons than one; but I get so angry the way our government carries out its responsibilities, I am compelled to discuss this matter. I cannot restrain myself.

          Surfing the internet today, my attention was drawn to an article from Reuters titled, “U.S. Waived Laws to Keep F-35 on Track with China-Made Parts”. Now that made me mad. The F-35, a $392 Billion state of the art fighter plane, billions upon billions of dollars over budget, and we are setting aside our national security to buy parts for it? I have just acknowledged my ignorance of this subject, but one thing I do know is the subject of accounting. I know, also, that our illustrious Department of Defense has been budgeting and spending over the past few years close to $750 Billion dollars per year (Almost Three Quarters of a Trillion Dollars, if you will), an amount greater than all the major powers of the earth combined. I know that our Department of Defense lost billions of dollars of currency (packaged on skids) in Iraq during the war which they never found. I know that our Department of Defense does not have an auditable accounting system–a complete set of books with integrated data bases. When he became head of the Department of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld said then that one of his first priorities would be to correct that, but it never happened. Supposedly, two wars and other priorities intervened (I don’t understand that either. Surely a top executive of the caliper to be head of the Department of Defense of a nation as large as ours can handle a routine matter such as that. Our major corporations do it every day.).

          Another practice of government which needs to and must be scrapped is the annual practice of “spending out” the prior year’s budget in order to justify the next year’s budget. Budgeting for next year should be based upon next year’s projected needs–not last year’s expenditures. We can track down “mad cows” to specific barnyards within specific states. We can spy on our people and the people of the world, but we don’t have the technology to produce a balanceable set of books in government? Jumping just briefly to immigration, we were told that of the estimated eleven million or so of illegal immigrants, the majority of them had overstayed their visas and just “turned up missing”, blending into and lost within the populace. We don’t know what, who, or where they are. Hellooooooo! With today’s computer technology, why was our government not on top of that problem within twenty-four hours?  I’ll tell you this. If they were in the business of loan sharking, they would have. If these illegals were pornography, they would have (reference the SEC incident reported a few years back).

          This is not a rant and rave to blow off steam. We have real financial problems in our nation. As I have said before, we have forty-seven million people in poverty, approximately twenty million of whom are either unemployed or underemployed, and millions more of whom are sleeping in cars, under bridges, or on the street. For that matter, we have another approximately twenty million persons holed up in our prisons. Goodness gracious! We only have three hundred seventeen million or so (give or take) in our whole country; and, what is worse, our leaders do not seem to even care. This is a game for them as they watch us writhe and suffer. One thing is certain. This is no game for those in pain.
       
        There is one more point. As much as our government might desire such, these down and out folks aren't going to go away. They aren't going to just disappear into the woodwork like a bunch of worms. History over the centuries tells us these problems will be solved–one way or the other; but, wouldn’t it make more sense to do it peacefully before the …. hits the fan?

Ronald Miller

mtss86@comcast.net