TED'S TAKE: EVER SPREAD PEANUT BUTTER ON A FRESH SLICE OF BREAD?

Ever tried spreading peanut butter on a piece of bread? What about a piece of fresh beard? One right out of the package and from the center of the loaf? You know, the softest piece. Spreading one gob of peanut butter across the whole piece so everything but the crust is covered. It’s hard, right? If one corner has too much, or you spread too thin the bread tears up. That’s the trick - to spread limited peanut butter without tearing the bread. You have to spread the whole thing evenly.

It’s the same when you budget. Think about this in the context of the Federal budget. The peanut butter is funding or resources, and the bread are the programs funded. Too little funding in one spot, and something suffers—too little funding spread thin across all and the bread tears entirely. When you want to create a new program but don’t want to add more resources it’s like getting a bigger piece of bread and trying to spread the same amount of peanut butter. It might work – you want to get things right and not tear the bread, but there’s a good chance you’re going to tear the bread.

This is a perfect example of what the country is going through as Congress considers the Federal budget. Throw into the mix the fact that we need to actually save some money – start with a smaller gob of peanut butter! If we don’t, then the country may suffer. The United States must pay interest on its national debt, which currently stands at $952 billion. That’s just interest on the debt. The actual debt is roughly $36.2 trillion. Traditionally, the government borrows money to help cover this debt, but we may not be able to borrow forever. So, let’s say we have the same amount of peanut butter. How do we keep our piece of bread from getting bigger? How do we decide which programs get reduced or cut? And what are the consequences of doing so?

Federal budget and related Congressional debates can feel far removed for most of us, but putting it in a different context hopefully helps people engage. While we can debate the budget processes, timing, and level, we all need to honestly consider that increasing resources – that giant gob of peanut butter –might simply not be possible. We need to discuss realizing what’s at stake and where we stand IF we don’t want to tear the bread.