Waste not, want not

I’ve discovered a report called Wastebook 2013.  You all probably knew about it long before I did, but it’s eye-opening to find out what our government thinks is necessary.  Robotic squirrels?  A campaign to make more Americans crave caviar?  Martian meals?  Did you now it costs 2 cents to make a penny?  Floating outhouses for Oregon fishermen? 

Oh, I know.  It’s just a drop in the big bucket of taxpayers’ money.  Each little pet program isn’t that big a deal.    

There’s an active campaign going on the north coast right now to sign up MORE people for food stamps.  If you don’t want to use them for necessities like food, you can always sell them on line and get cash to buy whatever you want.  Like candy bars and condoms.  Or marijuana and movies.

More drops in the bucket.

It’s those seagulls I was talking about in a blog a few weeks ago, and a mentality that seems to permeate our society.  I want what I want when I want it, and that’s right now!  Oh, but I don’t want to pay for it.  Let “the government” pay for it. 

Everyone seems to have forgotten that we are the government.  The men and women we put into Congress and the man (or perhaps woman someday) in the White House is a reflection of who we are as a people.  It’s always easier to point fingers than examine ourselves. 

Do we have a budget?  Are we spending wisely?  How many credit cards do we have and use on a regular basis?  Are we planning for our future – not just talking about it, but actually saving dimes and nickels for that rainy day or those retirement years that will come sooner than we expect?

Or do we just spend whatever comes in and pull out the credit card when we run out of cash because we see something we just have to have?  Do we drag our feet about paying our bills so we can have a vacation?  Do we tell the kids we can’t afford to take them to the zoo because (secretly) we’d really rather have our daily latte or swing our golf clubs at the driving range?

The decisions made in Washington D.C. will change for the better when we start examining ourselves and taking action to change bad habits that have grown out of our own entitlement mentality.