Tuesday, November 25, 2008

Making do

My column for the West Bend Daily News is online.  It’s called, “Making do.”  Here’s a snippet. 

Families are finding ways to make do with what they have. They are cutting back their spending, putting off purchases, canceling unnecessary services, making the things they have last longer, finding ways to earn a little extra money and generally tightening their belts.

   The good news is that we can do it. To coin a phrase, “yes, we can.” Americans have proven themselves to be one of the most industrious, resourceful, creative, hearty and optimistic people in the history of the world. Whenever our nation has been faced with a challenge, we have met it. Americans adapt and overcome. It’s just what we do.

   At the same time as Americans are making do, our governments must do the same. This is not the time for things that we would like to have or do. This is the time for every single spending decision of any amount to be scrutinized by the following questions: must we do it and is this the best way to do it? If a spending proposal fails either one of those questions, our elected officials have a fiduciary duty to the taxpayers to not spend the money.

(3) Comments
Posted by Owen at 0732 hrs
Economy + Politics + Politics - General + Politics - Wisconsin

  1. So, the question I have is who will decide, If we must do it and is this the best way to do it?

    Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on November 25, 2008 at 1131 hrs


  2. Don’t worry Kris. They will propose tons of new spending - then cut about 30% of the proposal out and say they have cut spending.

    They have a very different dictionary than regular people, and apparently, so do the newspapers.

    Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on November 25, 2008 at 1527 hrs


  3. Very good column, Owen.

    Bill, you put it very well.  Hopefully they will use the average working family’s terminology.

    Posted by hsgbdmama on November 26, 2008 at 0859 hrs


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