Saturday, January 12, 2013

My Idea on the Budget Now & in the Future

Once you become a politician you are labeled right or wrong.  You are expected to bring home the bacon for your district right or wrong.  Ideology gets involved in your spending decisions right or wrong.

I would have a Citizens Patriot Panel that has to approve expenditures in bills.  It would be like the Congressional Budget Office but with more power. This panel would be composed of regular citizens that meet a budget everyday and that, after reviewing the bills, would go back to running their small restaurant, working at the dollar store, teaching students or working in a factory, etc.  They would go back to Meijer and buy milk and to the gas station and buy gas. They would not have the perks of Congress and would have to stay in touch with reality.

The panel would be called the CPP which is the Citizens Patriot Panel .  We would chose them with the simple test of how they manage their finance.  Do they have a rainy day fund?  Do they provide for their family?   The panel would not have fancy offices or big budgets but would have impact.  I would predict after the panel shot down some stupid spending that the legislators, knowing that their requests would go in front of the panel, would be more focused and better stewards of our money.

The panel would not get paid and not be up for election.  The panel could be overturned by the Congress with a special vote that would have to put on C-SPAN so the everyday citizens could see the everyday politicians being turned down.  I would predict that the Medicare and Social Security deficit would be straightened out by this panel.  I really think our citizen's love our country and if they understood the code red deficit we have they would make sacrifices on Medicare and Social Security.  The citizens panel would give backbone to our elected officials.  They seem to need it.