Buy Bonds!

The deficit discussions are quite the topic of discussion recently, and understandably so. It's as if your spouse went out and maxed out every line of credit your family had acquired, then came home and told you you needed to increase your income to pay the exorbitant payments. What makes it worse is the money was spent on a closet full of gowns, tuxedos, and ball room shoes, that are totally frivolous. It's not like the garage was stuffed with tools capable of creating income, the money went without thought and can never be fully recovered.

Everyone has an opinion as to how to resolve this matter. Some of the top 1% believe they aren't paying enough taxes. I happen to believe we have a spending problem, and to increase our debt limit is akin to getting an additional credit card to make payments on one you can't already afford. I do have two solutions for those who wish to be taxed more. First fill out the short form and deny yourself the tax loopholes your currently enjoying, and if that doesn't ease your conscience enough, purchase whatever amount of treasury bills required to avoid that guilt your feeling. This is specifically pointed toward Warren Buffet and Ben Stein, who apparently want to complain about how little they pay in taxes, but fail to resolve the situation personally.

Now that I've bought up the bond issue, there was a time back in history when Americans were encouraged to buy bonds to fund the war effort. You could actually volunteer to have a payroll deduction to support the your country financially. The upside to this program is you weren't just throwing money out of the window, it was an investment, that had a return. How about we launch a program to buy bonds to lower the deficit? Why sell them to foreign countries when we have the ability to self fund that market? Why allow Wall Street or China to profit from our credit needs? A slick marketing program to remind the American population just how easy it is to show patriotism and invest in our country is all that's required. If we're going to owe money, we might as well owe it to ourselves. If every American who was capable of doing so, did, the bond market would skyrocket, and the money would stay within our own economy.

Now this does not address the main problem. We need to quit spending! The first thing any financial counselor does is put their client on a budget, and track their spending. Is there any reason America doesn't have a budget? Better yet, can anyone justify why there isn't a balanced budget? Not to do so is simply irresponsible. There isn't a human with a lick of financial sense that doesn't know this to be true; so why is Washington exempt from this logic?

God Bless!
Capt. Bill

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