The Golden Rule for Obama's New Debt Commission

Reports are surfacing that President Obama will announce a new bipartisan debt commission this week. I hope they've all read All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten. If not, here is the Golden Rule they will need to guide us out of this crippling debt storm: Spend Less than You Make.

This classic formula still works today! If the government can hire more people who know how to balance a checkbook, and less who know how to use abstract physics to engineer meta games of Three-card Monte, we will inevitably draw down our debt.

This may come as a surprise to many politicians, but government does not generate revenues like businesses; rather, it does so through collecting taxes. In other words, when politicians say they want to reduce taxes yet provide more services, entitlements or bailouts, they are speaking of something as impossible as producing snow in Arizona on a 100 degree summer day. Add growing interest payments on debt, and the problem becomes much worse.

So, rather than over-thinking the issue and wasting tax payer dollars discussing strategy, start with the Golden Rule of all economic prosperity: spend less than you make ... or, more accurately, spend less than you take.

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