Essentials and Priorities…

The economy is down, money is tight and everybody from the government (federal, state and local) down to each individual family is having to evaluate what is essential in their budget. What is really necessary when times are tough?

The federal government can borrow if they run out of money which raises the nation’s debt, but can sometimes be a necessary evil when we need to revive the economy. States and local governments don’t have that luxury. They can raise taxes or create bonds which must be paid back by taxpayers, but otherwise their only option is to cut spending.

If it comes down to cutting programs or spending in general what is really essential to the state?  For my state, Oregon, the biggest programs that are funded are Education (k-12 and higher ed), Public Safety (state police and prisons) and Human Services (health care, assisted living, treatment programs etc) . I attended an Oregon Ways and Means committee meeting that was taking testimony from anyone who wanted to give input on the budget. There are a lot of people who want their money and a lot of sob stories were told. I work in Higher Ed and of course I would hope we wouldn’t get hit so hard, but the initial proposal is a 15% cut (above what has been cut the last year or so).  It is bigger than other groups, but not as big as the governor was threatening earlier this spring.

I can complain about cuts, but I really don’t know where I think cuts should actually go otherwise. My only input would be to not add services that aren’t already being provided unless there is an outside source of revenue paying for it. I got an email recently from a LGBT group wanting me to support a new legal advocate to make sure new laws are being followed. I can’t do that. It is great we are getting some new laws, but I have to currently believe law enforcement will follow the laws they are told to follow and if it is proven otherwise and we are in a better situation economically, then we can get a new position.

My actual focus is my family. I let myself get into too much debt. A lot of it is my own, but a good chunk is money I loaned others using my good credit. Unfortunately they are not able to pay me back on a regular basis so I now cover my debt and well as theirs. Because of the extra debt and with Mona going back to school we have been doing some fancy footwork to keep above water. I wonder sometimes about how serious I really am in getting my debt down. I haven’t been cutting the bills I  have control of (like cable, internet, phone, newspaper), but we don’t eat out much anymore and I have always been thrifty in taking my lunch to work and a thermos of coffee instead of buying it (sorry Katie).

Mona will be out of school in a few weeks. She is looking to get a contract job for the summer so we have some guaranteed income. This isn’t going to help get our debt down really because we need to replace the roof on our house. We got a quote of about $6200 which was less than expected, but of course more than we have. So hopefully her work will offset extra debt we will incur. Getting the quote on the roof is what got me thinking about priorities and what we really need. It would have been better if I seriously thought about this about 10 years ago, but c’est la vie.

So what do you all think? Any profound wisdom in how either the government or individual families can/are getting through this? I have been thinking about this for a while, but in the end I haven’t really come up with any answers.