The protest in Wisconsin has many across America thinking about the future. And for sure, we should all be considering what steps need to be taken now to avoid certain financial disaster. If spending budgets do not change, there are hard times looming in the not too distant future of the individual states as well as the nation as a whole. The National Debt is growing… see this site for a graphic display— http://www.usdebtclock.org/ . We have several spending “habits” that are unsustainable at many levels of government. It appears the governor of Wisconsin has decided to make the steps he believes will help the entire state. Others should listen and take notes.
Yesterday, as I was driving near Charlotte, NC, I tuned into the radio broadcast of Dave Ramsey. He was finishing a discussion about family budget questions and made the statement that it was okay to tell your children you could not afford something they wanted. (I will paraphrase the comments here). He then made the comment that many states will need to do the same thing and tell their citizens that we cannot afford everything we want or have had in the past. Cuts will have to be made or governments will fail financially. We don’t need that. He referenced the situation in Wisconsin and then closed his program.
The phrase that caught my attention was “we cannot afford that right now.” Why? Because while I was in Word of Faith Fellowship (WOFF), we were taught to NOT say that phrase to our children. It would hurt them, it could hurt their faith. It really was a precarious position and strained family budgets at times. If an item was approved and others were buying it (whatever “it” was), then there was great pressure to come up with the funds and buy “it”. Sometimes we were even told to go to church leadership and ask for help to get “it”.
