With the government spending money like a meth addict with a stolen credit card, I’ve seen all sorts of predictions one way or another as to how this will all turn out.

One side says the unicorns and rainbows are on the way, and just the “rich” will pay for it.  The other side says everyone is hosed and the inevitable VAT will be the final nail in our collective coffin.

What prompted this partiuclar rant was a video a student made showing the budget compared to the budget cuts that have been proposed.  The video, points out that people don’t really understand ratios of very large numbers in an intuitive way.  Click the above link, it’s only a short video and worth the watch.

For the TLDR crowd, here’s a still of the man’s budget example:

In his example, each stack of 5 pennies is equal to two billion dollars.  That’s a bunch of Lincolns.  

The video’s point is that the government is patting themselves on the back for reducing that budget by one hundred million dollars.  While that may sound like a bunch, it’s actually only one quarter of one penny in that table-full of pennies.

The $100 million is an amount so small, when actually compared to the total, as to be  nearly insignificant.  Trying to balance the budget at that rate would be like trying to empty the beach a cup of sand at a time:  Sure you can do it, but not in any meaningful sort of time frame.

And, as a footnote for the TLDR crowd; see all the pennies to the right of the blue line?  That’s all the money that the government is spending but doesn’t have.  All those pennies to the right of the blue line is our future income.  Our children’s future income. 

How much is enough?  I have always maintained that the government will spend as much money as you give it.  It doesn’t matter how much you give it, it’ll spend it and then want more.   Take our state of Oregon here for example.  Many years ago they amended our state constitution to say that if our state takes in more money than the budget calls for, the surplus is sent back to the tax payers in the form of a “kicker” check. 

There isn’t a year that goes by since that amendment was ratified that someone in the state legislature, or the governor him/herself doesn’t make noise about trying to keep the surplus or try to not send out the kicker checks.  They get very creative in trying to divert funds or start a repeal process, anything they can think of to hang on to the money.  I really and truly think they forget that the money is not theirs, it’s ours.  They spend all they can get and want more; and with the Feds they get more since they can operate on a deficit.

So, at what point is enough of a deficit?  If you can spend whatever you want then worry about how you’re going to pay for it later what incentive do you have to stop? 

I really can’t answer that, the only thing I can answer is who will end up paying for it.