12-19-24

We’ve all had times when we had to rob Peter to pay Paul….by that I mean that

I’m sure that most folks listening to this have had those days where paying one

bill meant not paying another…..or for that matter, maybe you’ve had times when

some very important bills got paid on a credit card…..it can be extremely

frustrating and if you’re not careful it can get away from you in a hurry…..to this

day I’m not sure how our family made it through my late in life decision to go to

law school…there I was in my early 30’s with a wife, two kids, a dog and a

mortgage and NOW I go to law school?!.....but with careful application of a 2 nd

mortgage on the house, a little bit of GI Bill, two very modest day job paychecks

and a credit card the shell game played out for 3 years…..using the credit card to

pay for daily trips to Birmingham for class, pay down the balance as best we

could, draw from the credit line to pay tuition when the GI Bill was short, pay it

back down, then draw it again when the regular paycheck got irregular…..it was 3

years of financial tightrope walking but God was faithful, I graduated, and

somehow the lights stayed on and the kids always had Christmas……

Charlene was often the miracle worker…..she literally used to sit down every

month and plan out every dinner for the next month….every last one….and then

she would take stock of what we had in the cupboard and make a shopping list for

the rest…..I remember once being in a group of friends and someone was

complaining about the cost of groceries……I told them how Charlene handled our

groceries and they were impressed, but their appreciation turned to shock when I

told them that she fed the whole family of four and the dog for around $250 a

month….one lady said, “my word! I spend that every week!”…..there weren’t

many vacations but the kids always had new clothes for school, and truthfully we

didn’t lack for anything….. in my recollection there was a lot of laughter in the

house…….and we have said many times that we don’t take it for granted….not by

a stretch…..

Charlene and I learned firsthand what it means to live within our means…….do we

have some debt? Sure! Still paying that mortgage on our beautiful home but

generally speaking we are doing what many of you are doing…..trying to

responsibly live within our means……

But then there’s the federal government……because apparently the federal

government is allowed to operate in a spending deficit at every turn…..”deficit

spending” is a term that every American should know firsthand….it is literally

defined as “government spending, in excess of revenue, of funds raised by

borrowing rather than from taxation”……the bottom line is that where Charlene

and I threaded the financial needle to get through law school with the

understanding that every dime of debt incurred would have to be repaid,

Congress does not feel that same pinch…..deficit spending is illusory….it presents

to the world the false notion that you’ve got it when you don’t…..it is spending

more than you’ve got, but somehow in the halls of Congress that is

allowable….again, and again, and again…….every year the United States

Government collects revenue from taxes and spends it on its public programs and

agencies. If in any given year it spends more than it earns, its yearly budget will

result in a deficit. To cover the deficit, the U.S. Treasury will have to borrow

money (by selling securities like Treasury bills, notes, bonds and savings bonds to

the public), just like an individual who spends more than what he earns will have

to borrow the missing amount from a credit card. The accumulated deficits year

after year form the outstanding US national debt. ……just spend it like you got it!

This week a Republican House put together a spending extravaganza that comes

at a time when the national debt sits at roughly $36 Trillion……Conservatives were

immediately angry…..this so-called budget process is absolutely broken…..in

Alabama our state Constitution requires that we form and pass a balanced

budget…..but in DC, they have no such requirement…..but what they do have is

an open process called appropriations in which each department is supposed to

send its request, they get hammered out, debated, and the so-called regular

order of business requires that each subcommittee like transportation, public

health, and all the rest, send in their budgets to be compiled into one large

budget……the last time that happened was in the final year of Trumps first

term……instead the politically savvy big spender in charge have chosen instead to

do two things…..raise the debt ceiling which is like getting more credit limit on

your credit card…..and then pass a Continuing Resolution which is just like saying

“we will continue to do what we did before”…..except that they load the

continuing resolution with new spending and regulations…..so is it really a

continuance? Not really……This week the House almost went down that road

again…..and the Trump effect came careening in like a Mack Truck blowing its air

horn……Trump, Vance, Musk, Ramaswamy, a host of conservatives and the

grassroots of America called for it to stop and it actually appears to have gotten

their attention….the CR is off the table and we may see a so-called clean CR with

no pork get passed, a slight raise in the debt ceiling to give room to breathe, and

then on to real regular order of business budgeting as soon as the new GOP

Senate is seated after the first of the year…….what a mess! You and I couldn’t run

our house like this…..because let’s be clear…..if you and I borrow money to do

things then we know it and we assume the risk…..what we are seeing in DC is

more like what would happen if someone took your credit card and ran up a bill

and then walked away…..you didn’t ask for all of that but you get to pay for it……

It got me to thinking…..has there been a government leader in modern US history

who worked to reduce our public debt in a meaningful way…..you may be

interested to know that there was and it was President Calvin Coolidge……I read a

biography on Coolidge recently and came to an appreciation for the man…..His

bio from the Coolidge Foundation says in part:

Coolidge was elected vice president of the United States in 1920. Coolidge

succeeded to the presidency upon the sudden death of President Warren G.

Harding in August 1923. Coolidge restored trust and credibility to the office of the

presidency. In 1924, he was elected president in his own right.

Under Coolidge, the federal budget was balanced and the national debt reduced.

When Coolidge left office in 1929, the federal budget was actually lower than

when he arrived at the White House 67 months before. “I am for economy, and

after that I am for more economy,” Coolidge remarked.

The nation fared so well under Coolidge that people spoke of “Coolidge

Prosperity.” The Coolidge decade saw great technological advances, including the

transatlantic flight of Charles A. Lindbergh. This was the decade when many

Americans’ homes were first electrified and the decade when the automobile

became widespread.

President Coolidge left office wildly popular. He famously chose not to run for re-

election in 1928, believing “the chances of having wise and faithful public service

are increased by a change in the Presidential office after a moderate length of

time.”

How about that…..a President who cut spending, grew the measure of prosperity

for the nation as a whole, and left the office and the budget better than when he

found it……isn’t that refreshing?.....It is possible…..not necessarily easy….but

certainly possible, for a visionary leader to address fiscal policy

effectively……Coolidge may have lived in a different time and certainly didn’t take

office with the debt that modern Americans currently have on hand……but his

principles and his adherence to those principles are timeless…..and they are

lacking right now as Congress just continues to spend it like they’ve got it…..

And that’s a wrap for the Rightside Way!