What's All This Budgeting About?

Has anyone else out there paid any attention to the large number of budgets on the go? Spring Budgets. Speeches from the throne with lots of empty promises? Politicians hanging on by a thread, as their parties scramble to give us promises, balance the budget, and get us on the road to financial recovery. And don't get me started on the latest money transfer scandal.............or the hockey patronage deal, which someone should be paying for, but not me.

And how about the latest brain wave? The one where our brand new manors will be used for holding tanks, with half a dozen beds jammed into the activity space, or chapels, or whatever. This is outrageous. What have they, and what are we, been working for all our lives? The indignity of tight spaces where the staff will have a devil of a time giving the terrific care everyone has come to expect. These are difficult, often impossible choices, with serious consequences, and uncertain outcomes. I for one, would have hated having my loved one placed in this situation.

Who's to blame?

The list, I think, just gets longer.

Whether its Federal, Provincial or Municipal, I don't think any of them have a clue. Then, I wondered out loud, do they know the meaning of the word?

So, I paged through my trusty dictionary to find the meaning of the word "budget."

And there it was, somewhere in between "bizarre" and "bullshit" is the word "budget". What an appropriate place for it, since very often a budget is actually bizarre, or just pure bullshit.

I get it. I know the issues and resources we are talking about are numerous and arduous. It's not my place to criticize, since I'm not sure I could balance those budgets either.

It's not simple at all. Two + two will always = four. Except if you take one from the total and add on fourteen more, then slide six over, well, you get my drift. It's a budget no more. Now, even on little P.E.I. they are throwing around figures ending in billions, not just millions anymore, while federally, even trillions of dollars won't hold back the floodgates of debt, and soon it'll be whatever comes after trillions.

(It's quadrillions, I looked it up.)

Budgeting, tightening one's belt, dining on a shoestring, it's getting tougher all the time.

I would challenge those of our leaders whose pay grades are outrageous, shameful and embarrassing, to take a reality check. I think they mostly have forgotten where they came from.

Buy an electric car to save money on gas? That's ridiculous. It's about the same advice as a Lakota man gave........ cutting six inches off the bottom of a blanket and adding it to the top doesn't make the blanket longer. Vehicles like that are out of the realm of possibility for the average Joe Canadian.

I am no genius, but I can't imagine how young people are doing it.

Take an average family of a couple with two children, working on minimum wage, seasonally, with EI all winter.

Supposing they both work 40 hours, that is a grand total of about $1360 per week. Multiply that by 4 weeks a month, you have an income of $5440.

It sounds not too bad, until it doesn't. Once taxes and deductions come off, the couple is left in the ballpark with maybe $3300. Which wouldn't be too bad............

But take off rent, a car payment, lights and heat, diapers and necessities for the sweet babies, would there be anything left for food?

What if there is a sick baby, the meds would have to be covered out of pocket, because unfortunately in a lot of cases, there is no health insurance, who could afford it? What about glasses? A trip to the dentist? Then there's Christmas and lots of other things. Car repairs. New shoes. It's endless. Any dreams of an investment and saving for their future, or any kind of treat, gone out the window. There's no pension plan for the poorest of our residents. Every time the gas and oil prices go up, the level of anxiety must be awful.

And then back up and try all that on EI.

All the people we elect have all their needs met. A juicy salary, benefits, top of the line pension plan, health and dental plan paid by, you guessed it, you and me. Joe Q Public. Every job I ever had in my life, I used my own car, I did not have a company/government car with a bonus of 60 cents for every mile travelled cheque every month to get back and forth to work. Their gas is covered. I don't understand, when they are trying to "cut" costs to "balance a budget" they can't cut out unnecessary spending. Start at the top. If your wage is $150,000 plus, and you can't afford to buy a car for work, then you need to have a reality check. Pay for your own meals. Most working class have to brown bag it. There's nothing wrong with that and most of us quite enjoy it.

Meals paid for out of pocket? Only until the claims forms come rolling in, and they get it all back. Why not dine at Sim's? The very best of the best.

I'm oversimplifying things of course, no one ever sticks to a budget, it's a little like New Year's resolutions. Sounds good at the time, but it never lasts.

But like listening to events that are transpiring south of the 49th, it just drives my blood pressure up, and I can't afford that either. There's nothing I can do. And there's nothing I can do about the colossal waste of taxpayer money from the top all the way down either. I think everything has gone too far with little hope of it turning around any time soon.

In my narrow view, the tail is wagging the dog.