Big Jolly Politics

politics in Harris County and Texas

“Zero” based budgeting

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Jim Pepper Big Jolly Politics
Jim Pepper

What a novel concept!

Sadly, not enough people even know what this really means.

Let’s put it into terms of your own home budget, if you have one. Assume you make $75,000 a year. You are married (wife or husband doesn’t draw a paycheck), two kids, two cars, a home (with mortgage) and a myriad of other expenses.

That being the case, you have FIXED expenses throughout the year, mortgage payments, car payments, utility bills and other fixed expenditures ad infinitum, and don’t forget TAXES!

When you try and figure out what amount of disposable income you might have for the year, time to add up everything absolutely NEEDED. Forget the “wants” right now.

When you have finally decided your fixed expenditures, subtracted that from your income, you have what we euphemistically call “disposable income”. RIGHT??  WRONG!!!

Murphy’s Law will always come into play at this moment. Something will always happen to eat up some or all of the balance. We have to zero-base our budgets all the time or risk putting ourselves in a hole we cannot climb out of.

Here now comes the rub. If our families have to budget this way, why isn’t the government required to budget this way?  “But the government uses a budget, don’t they?” The government uses what I call a “cost plus” budget. They don’t start out with a blank sheet each year and put the basic absolute needs in place, they start out with last year’s budget and add on. They add on, even if some programs are over they continue to be funded. It was brought to my attention that there was funding for pond maintenance, but the pond was cemented over, no longer needing maintenance, yet the fund was continued and therefore, so was the budget entry.

Here in O’Fallon, Missouri we use “zero based” budgeting, every year. The Departments start from scratch, establish the ongoing NEEDS, operational cost(s) and then, if anything is left over, they put in their wants and also put away some in reserves to build a kitty for any future improvements or costly equipment.

We currently enjoy an unrestricted reserve that would make a lot of cities jealous. As a result, taxes and fees are kept low, we have an aggressive capital improvements program for the future AND all without taxing and spending what we don’t have.

Novel? Maybe.

Conservative? Absolutely!

Common Sense? What else but a resounding YES!

 

Jim Pepper is currently a Councilman in O’Fallon, MO, a city of approx. 80,000, he was just re-elected this month to a second term. Jim is a former Mayor and City Councilman in St. Louis County, MO. Jim also spent 35 years in the corporate world of Xerox. 

Mitt Romney's finances – leading by example

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Yeah, yeah, I know what you’re thinking – that isn’t what the mass media is saying about Mitt Romney! They’re mocking him for “only” paying 14{997ab4c1e65fa660c64e6dfea23d436a73c89d6254ad3ae72f887cf583448986} in Federal Income taxes, as if that makes him somehow “elitist” or “not a man of the people”. But let’s look at the bigger picture of his actual 2011 finances:

[table id=9 /]

A little different, isn’t it? Isn’t this exactly what the tax code has been designed to do? Let see what the tax code encourages:

  • Encourages wealthy people to put their money to work, which enables people to borrow money to start and expand their businesses. Mitt Romney? Check – his income stream and tax rate follow this formula.
  • Encourages people of all incomes to donate to charity, a traditional view that promotes good citizenship and maintains separation of church/state. Mitt Romeny? Check – 29{997ab4c1e65fa660c64e6dfea23d436a73c89d6254ad3ae72f887cf583448986}, although he only deducted 16{997ab4c1e65fa660c64e6dfea23d436a73c89d6254ad3ae72f887cf583448986}.

Yet the criticism is withering. If you watched any of the Sunday morning political shows this morning, the bias against this man was incredible. Here’s a guy that took home only 45{997ab4c1e65fa660c64e6dfea23d436a73c89d6254ad3ae72f887cf583448986} of his income being blasted for not paying more – one pundit even said that Romney wasn’t producing anything, just living off his investments.

Say what? Isn’t that the dream that we all shoot for? After all, the man is 65 years old – I think he deserves to kick back a little and enjoy the fruits of his labor. I guess these pundits missed Ann Romney’s speech at the Republican National Convention talking about the sacrifices they made as a family when Mitt worked long hours and missed a lot of family time.

The bias in this election from the media is so overwhelming that many Republicans and Independents are disheartened – heck, even many of the people in the media that claim to be Republicans are attacking Mr. Romney brutally if they find anything at all they don’t like about his campaign. But take heart, my friends – we are going to win this election. The American people are smarter than the press gives them credit. They no longer hang on every word that spews forth from the likes of Brian Williams, David Gregory, Peggy Noonan, David Brooks, or Joe Scarborough. They look around their communities and KNOW that things should be better. Hope and change are long gone, replaced by class and racial divisiveness from the Obama administration.

So the best thing that Republicans and Independents can do from now until election day is to keep their cool, register 10 neighbors to vote, and speak the truth whenever you see or hear the lies from the leftist media. And consider donating a few bucks to the campaign, this election will be a turning point in history – do we continue the path of debt and decay or restore our founding principles? Let’s git-r-done!

The Election Choice—Can Romney make it simple? Can Romney be Romney?

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Ed Hubbard

Watching all of the pundits say that Romney has to make himself likable is beginning to drive me crazy.  Of course no one wants to embrace a dour person (though Richard Nixon was on 4 of 5 winning national tickets, just proving that there are exceptions to every rule), but Romney is not dour, and the times require a serious, steady, positive message.  I am going to say something I never thought I would say a few months ago—let’s let Romney be Romney.

What would that mean?  It would mean that we should allow Romney to make the case to the American people about the choices we face, and how he is the best man at this time to help us make those choices because he has lived those choices all his life.

Romney knows the correct answer to the fundamental question of this election:  Who builds this economy and this country, the federal government or private businesses and the individuals they employee?

And the answer is:  private business and the individuals they employ.  If you don’t understand that fundamental answer, you do not deserve the public’s trust to hold an office in our government.  Period.

It is private business that generates the jobs that provide for families and that build neighborhoods.  We spend more time every day with our co-workers than with our families, and the positive bonds formed through this activity ripple out in every direction.  Employing people affects the lives of both the employer and the employee, from which both grow.  The products or services generated by a business affect customers, and spur innovation by others through competition.  But, most importantly, every paycheck signed sets aside a retirement fund, pays for health care, provides for the sustenance of a family, pays for a mortgage and a college education, pays for the charity from a church or non-profit organization, and creates the tax base for the infrastructure and protection of a community.

Government is nothing more than a service that we pay for with the taxes from our paychecks and profits.  It is a service through which we have chosen to hire some of our neighbors to provide education to our children, create and maintain a physical infrastructure, provide for our defense and protection our communities and nation, and preserve a safety net for those unable through no fault of their own to help themselves (or find private charitable help), while we work and build the foundation of wealth and happiness for our families, our communities, and our country.  In essence, government works for us, at our direction, and to the extent we feel we need it—we do not work for government.  To increase government’s role in our society beyond providing these services effectively and efficiently, is to threaten the delicate balance among free people that this system has long maintained—and that makes our experiment in self-government so unique and exceptional.

President Obama and the modern Democratic Party do not believe in this delicate balance.  Instead, they want to transform it so that Government indeed becomes the source of all wealth and happiness in our society—and as they do so, they are putting our delicate balance in mortal jeopardy. The Democrats have long wanted to change the fundamental relationships in our private sector, and between the private sector and government, by inserting government more and more into the private relationships that a private-sector paycheck has always supported.  This process has reached a tipping point now.

Because no one knows which way our system will tip—how much further the federal government will interfere in the private market and private relationships, and how much taxes will be seized to pay for the massive public spending and debt incurred to fund that interference—a cloud of uncertainty now hangs over our country (and, by extension, over the world economy).  And that uncertainty keeps business from hiring people, and that cuts the paychecks that support families and communities. That uncertainty, if allowed to continue, will tip the balance toward a new pervasive government and the nation the Democrats have long tried to create.

We must bring an end to this transformation that disguises itself as “hope and change,” and “moving forward.” This transformation does not promise progress, but, instead, a benign peonage for future generations.  Is that what prior generations fought for?

Through his work in the private sector, in his church, and through the charities he has supported, Romney understands, and indeed embodies the best of the balanced system I have just described.  He understands the challenge and threat the Democrats’ vision has created for the delicate balance of our unique society.  He just needs to be honest with us; and then challenge us to help him stop this transformation, to make the necessary reforms to remove the uncertainty, and to restore the historic balance between the private sector and government, so that private business will write those paychecks again.

It’s that simple.  Great speeches by Ann Romney, Chris Christie, Condi Rice, Susana Martinez, and Paul Ryan have all paved the way for him.  Now, let’s hope Romney will be Romney.