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In the hard financial times of today what’s our government trying to get us to do?  Spend all the little pennies we can.  What?  Is that right?  Did I say that right?  Yes, unfortunately I said that right.  They want the American people to spend their way out of debt.

Let’s start by looking at the national deficit.  What is a deficit?  A deficit is when you spend more than you make.  Sound familiar?  It should!  Many American live paycheck to paycheck and when that runs out, we turn to our credit cards.  So what does it mean when we add the word “National” in front of deficit?  We get National Deficit!  Yup, that means our national government spends more than it makes in any given year.  To make it a little more personal, these are the men and women WE hired to look out for US.

Now don’t be confused by Politian’s who interchangeably use the word national debt and nation deficit.  The national debt is a whole new subject.  National debt is how much the government owes.  So to put it in perspective lets use the credit card analogy.  When you and I spend more than we make in a given month we use our credit cards to help use out.  That’s our own little personal deficit for that month.  Now, when we add something to our credit card that we can’t pay back by the end of the next month, this becomes our own little person debt.

In order for the US Government to even think about getting out of debt, we have to think about turning our national deficit into a national surplus.  You guessed it.  A surplus is when we have money left over at the end of the month.  Now don’t be fooled, these are simplistic explanation, and in no way begin to fully explain the grand economics of government.  But then we aren’t economists either.

Now, the point of this little story is that our nation deficit is expected to reach almost $500 Billion for 2009.  That means the government is spending $500,000,000,000 more than its making.  Thank goodness this is per year and not per month!  Bad news is the government has been spending more than it makes for so long our nation debt as somewhere around $11.5 Trillion.  That’s $11,500,000,000,000 our government owes someone else.

So how do we fix this problem before it gets out of control?  Okay okay it’s already out of control.  Let’s just step back and ask what can you and I do about this astronomical debt and deficit?  First thing is don’t be fooled by government programs that require us to spending our way out of debt.  Cash for clunkers, lower mortgage interest rates to spur us into buying, another social service (health care reform); all this means more debt for you and I to pay for now and in the future.  Cash for clunkers is a good one.  Not only do you purchase a new debt and pay for it for the next few years, but then you get taxed in order to pay for the government subsidization.  Talk about double jeopardy! 

If we all made one phone call per month, this problem can slowly start to go away.  Call your local representative.  Make them listen.  Tell them we are tired of footing the bill.  Require them to make changes.  Click on the link and chat it up with your rep.  http://www.house.gov/.  But the most important thing is to keep calling no matter what.