Congress, meet PAYGO

Members of Congress of the United States, I would like to reintroduce you to my friend PAYGO.

With our nation’s ever blossoming deficit, it’s often asked how the nation will ever repay these funds. Our current course will lead us to a grand combination of tax increases and budget cuts. There are ways we can slowly trim down how much we owe our creditors. First, however, we have to examine our spending.

Government usually takes after the character of its citizens. The ideal citizen makes their money creating something product (be it labor or ideas). From time to time, they go into debt based on a likely increase of their product’s value. Once society realizes this increase, the citizen makes more money, and in turn pays back these loans. After awhile, they can reduce the costs in takes to create value. The extra profit made goes into a savings account used for future goals and endeavours. In essence, government should do the same thing.

However, this has clearly not been the case. In reality, government creates many products but there is no agreement on its value. All citizens like some government programs and hate others. While there are disagreements on what products to buy, there is agreement on payment–citizens don’t want to pay for all programs, or want someone else to pay for them. Government doesn’t seem to mind and instead tries to be everything for everyone, even if no one will pay up. The result: Government creating too many programs with no way to pay for them.

So what should be done?

The government should go to bankruptcy court, so to speak. Every program should be examined for their usefulness. Then, if found useful, funds should be allocated directly for those programs. Like other debtors cannot spend beyond their means, the government cannot, under PAYGO, live beyond their means for all their programs. Any legislation passed by law must include a fund reduction from another program or a revenue enhancement to cover the costs of the legislation.

Only then will government accurately place value on what it provides and stop paying too much money for programs that do not work.

Statement of Principles

In a moment of self-realization, a friend and I discovered that we are the calvary we had always hoped would reinforce the front lines. We are the calvary, and today we are fighting on multiple fronts.

With only our ideas and intellect, we battle timidity, fear-mongering, and irrationality on a daily basis. With only tin cans on a string, we shout over those with institutional microphones. With only the desire to enrich our nation and our future generations, we fight those who desire to enrich only their allies and themselves.

More often than not we have lost these battles, and we are likely to lose more. Yet, I wish this to be a testament for the ideals we stood for. And maybe one day, on our ideas alone victory will be ours.