Living the dream, man!

 

 

 

"It is okay to be happy and carefree. However, it is even more okay to be practical..."

At a local store my wife and I frequent, there is a very young man who recently started to cashier. My wife thinks he looks 15, but since this store sells spirits, one must be at least 21 to work there. So here he is, working the cash register, probably making just above minimum wage. Once in a while when a customer comes up to check out, the young man is asked how he is doing. The young man's answer is always the same. "I'm living the dream, man!"

Really? That is my thought the first time I heard him say that. I worked minimum wage jobs when I was much younger. They were not much of a dream. When I mentioned that to my wife, she quickly calibrated me. She reminded me there was nothing wrong with this young man being happy at his job. And she was right. There is nothing wrong with that. However, the practical streak in me once again took over. At $10/hour, he cannot afford rent anyplace decent, he can't afford to get married and have kids, and he sure can't afford to go to school. In other words, I circled back to my first premise - not much of a dream.

Today we have many in our government who also believe we are still "living the dream". We have money to burn.  If I hear one more time, "We can afford it - we are the greatest nation on Earth", I am going to throw up in my mouth. Here is my practical side coming out once again. Yes, we are the greatest nation on Earth. No, we can't afford much, as our credit cards are maxed out, and the piggy bank is about empty. "Living the dream" and the "American dream" are not always the same. Many times the "American dream" entails being responsible. Saying no at times. Not writing checks when there is no money to do so. Spending like we are still "living the dream" on the other hand, may not.

So next week starts "go time". The new Congress will be sworn in, and assignments will be handed out. According to Drudge, budget battles with the incoming Congress are already starting to percolate. We shall see. If there are going to be battles this year, I want our side to be fighting for a budget surplus this next year which will start chipping away at our cancerous debt. That is a hill worth fighting for. To simply argue about how much of an increase the budget is going to get year after year does not sound like too much of a battle to me.

It will be interesting to see which path Congress takes this year. Are we going to continue to allow them to spend like we are "living the dream", or are we going insist they responsibly budget for our "American dream". By not being responsible, Congress might let our "American dream" turn into our financial nightmare. And that is the kind of dream none of want to live.