LIVING WITHIN YOUR BUDGET

DOES THE SYSTEM REALLY WANT OR ALLOW YOU TO DO THAT?

These days, we hear plenty about budgets. The President's Budget, the Congressional Budget, the State Budget, the Municipal Budget and, yes, your budget. We hear screams from the right side of the aisle saying, you the citizen, should live within your budget. If you are struggling, these days, many on the right believe that it is your fault. You were somehow irresponsible with your money, spending it frivolously, or perhaps purchasing things from the many wealthy business owners on the right that kept telling you that you needed to buy their merchandise and on "CREDIT." Almost daily, you hear someone say we need to get the credit markets flowing again. This week, I want to examine the full possibility of those accusations.

Let's take the young man or woman, who is married, and two children. For the purposes of this study, we will have one worker, while the other stays home and attends to their children. If he or she is working, one (usually she) is statistically making less than the counterpart, and they have to spend almost what the second partner makes on extra clothing, child care expenses, and, don't forget that extra tax bracket; reducing that second income to almost nothing.

Let's say that we have an average factory worker (nonunion) or, Walmart, McDonald's, or Burger King worker making an average of $12.00 per hour. That figure in some of these instances is high. Most of these workers struggle with less. Now on a 40 hour week, 52 weeks per year, this worker would earn approximately $24,960.00 (just enough to put him or her above the poverty level to make them ineligible for government benefits, but not enough to get ahead. Now out of the $2,080.00 per month, the Federal Tax (Income and Social Security 15%), State Taxes (15%), and local tax (municipal 2%) on this income is approximately $672.00 leaving them with a net income of $1,408.00 for a family of four.

Next, you hear about this family of four living beyond their means. Well, let's examine that.

According to the Ohio Administrative Code 5101:4-5-01, last amended October 1, 2008, the average family of four is allotted a maximum food stamp allowance of $584.00 for an entire month. And, if many of you reading this are honest, you have to spend much more than this to eat healthy. This amount buys pasta, pasta, pasta. This leaves approximately $824.00 left.

Now with that remaining $824.00, we have to pay rent.

According to the 2009 HUD Fair Market Value Statistics for the Cuyahoga County area of Ohio, the average and fair market value rent for a two bedroom structure is $694.00 ($740.00 for Franklin County, Ohio). There are those out there that would say, you can find places to rent less than that. Places they would not live themselves and places where the crime statistics are altered daily. Now you are left with $130.00 to pay for your heating costs, electrical costs, phone costs, bus passes or car expenses, household goods insurance, state mandated car insurance, medical insurance premium, USE tax (sales tax), medical Co-pays (many can't even afford to use their health insurance after paying for it), dental care, life insurance premiums, used clothing, and so on. Many would say you need to take on a second job to make ends meet and many do take on second jobs, along with increased taxes, increased child care expenses, increased work expenses and, God forbid, an emergency occurs. There is no possibility to put away enough money for most emergencies, hence high interest, easy available credit cards. You now have been forced into a credit situation.

Wages have been stagnant by design for three decades. Between the United States Labor Department and the Federal Reserve, this was all engineered and planned. All the while over the last eight years, gasoline prices increased and that made prices increase on everything from milk to every product you buy, including utilities. Don't you remember George Bush, Sr. saying less is more, all the while he and his wealthy friends got more and more. You were suppose to be at home enjoying more family time on less resources. Don't listen to what he says, watch what he did and does! More is more. And what about Barbara Bush, after Katrina, standing in the middle of the Houston Astrodome and stating, "It's not like they're not use to being poor," referring to the Katrina victims. While Barbara Bush is recovering from heart surgery, at least she, personally, could afford the insurance paid for on the backs of the tax payer and afford the insurance co-payments, subsidized by her tax payer supported pension. I suppose with her reasoning, she would state it is not like the poor are not use to eating the lower cost pasta, at least they are not starving (maybe developing more heart disease and getting obese, but hey, they are not starving). I suppose with her reasoning, she would state that it is not like the poor are not use to being unhealthy and sick (We, the wealthy have made sure of that).

Don't forget it is the wealthy that look down their noses at the poor and think that people that have to file bankruptcy are somehow less hardworking or less than intelligent because they didn't have any health insurance, or car insurance, or life insurance (didn't they know they were going to die while they were struggling to live), all the while they knowingly paid them barely enough to exist upon while they got wealthy off the backs of other people.

Recently, I had a middle class secretary state to me that it was right to pay people that worked at fast food restaurants or department stores a lower wage because, after all, these were never meant to be jobs for adults to live on, just jobs to subsidize some kids' pay check. Ms. Secretary, the next time you are in Walmart, Kmart, Burger King, McDonald's, etc. look around at the workforce. These are the jobs many adults are forced to survive on. Thank God Ms. Secretary that you still have your job. These are the jobs that move America. All the while the average Burger King worker was being paid $14,000 per year (less than poverty wage), their parent corporation, Goldman Sachs handed out bonuses (BONUSES) to their top corporate executives totaling over $6.5 billion dollars, enough to pay each one of their workers an additional $18,000 per year, all the while many of their employees were forced to have their health care subsidized by the tax payer in the way of Corporate Welfare. The higher we are, the more it hurts when we fall!

The problem really is that the system, after years of corruption and greed, is at its' breaking point. People like Bernie Madoff have been allowed to operate by the wealthy in a climate of quid pro quo (You do for me, and I do for you). The reason Bernie Madoff will have a Plea Bargain or DEAL is because there are so many complicit in his actions, that they don't want him to name names. For $60 billion dollars, I am sure that many politicians, judges, lawyers, etc. benefited from his actions and, therein lies the Plea Bargain. Do they really want you to live within your budget? You have been strategically and economically enslaved by this nation for years. There is always that cardboard box, right?

Next Week: With all the baby boomers retiring, who had the vested interest to allow or engineer the stock markets to crash and insurance companies to fail?