Recent events both here in South Carolina and across the United States have prompted many to take a second look at the way they view financial assets. What was once a seemingly endless river of wealth in the mid-90’s eventually dried up, only to come back with a vengeance before reducing itself to a trickle that leaves most who thirst for it parched and weak.
Be it on the County level, in the schools or local cities and towns, the idea of living within ones means must become a cornerstone of public financial planning. To work within a budget is to recognize that there are some things that must be saved for in order to get, investments that associate a certain amount of risk in the hopes of a landing a big return. Sometimes there is a payoff and others a bust, but so goes the nature of finances.
Weighing the pros and cons of various government programs is a necessary evil when dealing with the public’s checkbook and recognizing things that must be cut comes with the territory of holding public office in fiscally challenging times. However, as is the case with a good editor faced with a properly constructed news article, cuts should always be made from the bottom up.
That doesn’t mean people at the bottom of a corporation or government ladder should be let go in favor of those who hold higher positions, although we have seen recently that is often a favorite action of many faced with such dilemmas. Instead, consider the all peoples to be in the upper echelon of the equation, instead of personal luxuries that are of lesser importance.
If someone is faced with the choice of losing their company cell phone or car in exchange for keeping a job, then perhaps that is a fair trade. If an executive realizes that the company jet is costing enough to pay for a even a few of his workers, he should give it up and search for other, more cost effective, means of travel.
Of course, not all of us are in the position of deciding whether to take a chartered flight or not, but we are able to make lesser cuts. Perhaps buy a used car over a new, choose fewer minutes on our cell phones so we can buy a cheaper plan and thus save costs, or even agree to share a few simple items rather than incurring the cost that is the luxury of exclusive use.
Whatever the idea may be, putting off a cost until tomorrow rarely works for long periods of time and eventually, if we are not smart about it, our luxuries become liabilities.
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