All this discussion about budgeting got ‘Puter to thinking about all the implicit assumptions that go into spending other people’s money (i.e., tax revenue). ‘Puter believes that Americans need not accept the current paradigm, as it is designed to inexorably lead to one answer: spend more money.

There are numerous preconceived notions that deserve to be challenged, including but not limited to:

1. Once a program or benefit is established, it can never be discontinued.

2. Spending less on a given program is akin to calling for its beneficiaries to be exterminated like vermin.

3. Tax rates can be raised continually to pay for the cost of everything on our wish list, without consequence.

4. We can always bond off our spending, because the dollar always will be the currency of last resort.

5. Social welfare programs (e.g., Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid), and to a lesser extent defense, are sacrosanct entitlements that cannot under any circumstance be altered.

Each of the above nostrums is demonstrably false, yet budgeteers year in and year out proceed on the assumption that they are unalterable truths.

‘Puter thinks that continuing to operate on a demonstrably false set of assumptions is political malpractice. ‘Puter fell back on his philosophy degree (seriously) and came up with the following questions that he believes should guide government spending.

1. Does each individual government expenditure (broadly defined to include statutes, programs, agencies, regulations, etc.) provide more benefit to society than its cost? Cost should be defined as broadly as government tends to define benefit. That is, the cost analysis should include all costs (e.g., added compliance time and effort for citizens) and not simply the direct monetary expenditure.

2. What are the base needs of Americans that our government should be tasked with meeting, if any? Think defense, food, shelter, medical care, etc.

3. If there are any needs we believe ought to be met, are those needs better met through private charities or providers?

4. If not, how much of those needs should be met through government assistance, and what form should that assistance take (e.g., tax breaks, direct aid, cash payments)?

5. What are the obligations of individual benefit recipients to both the government and the taxpayers?

6. If government benefits are doled out, how long is it appropriate to do so for individual recipients? This should be defined broadly to include not simply individuals, but institutions (museums, NPR) and corporations (farm subsidies).

‘Puter does not pretend that liberals and conservatives would come to the same, or even to similar, answers to the above questions. However, even asking the questions will require discussing the decades-old unspoken assumptions underpinning government spending. And this alone is valuable. When Americans see how the sausage is made, they will demand accountability and change.

Sunlight is the greatest disinfecant, after all.

'Puter

Always right, unless he isn’t, the infallible Ghettoputer F. X. Gormogons claims to be an in-law of the Volgi, although no one really believes this.

’Puter carefully follows economic and financial trends, legal affairs, and serves as the Gormogons’ financial and legal advisor. He successfully defended us against a lawsuit from a liquor distributor worth hundreds of thousands of dollars in unpaid deliveries of bootleg shandies.

The Geep has an IQ so high it is untestable and attempts to measure it have resulted in dangerously unstable results as well as injuries to researchers. Coincidentally, he publishes intelligence tests as a side gig.

His sarcasm is so highly developed it borders on the psychic, and he is often able to insult a person even before meeting them. ’Puter enjoys hunting small game with 000 slugs and punt guns, correcting homilies in real time at Mass, and undermining unions. ’Puter likes to wear a hockey mask and carry an axe into public campgrounds, where he bursts into people’s tents and screams. As you might expect, he has been shot several times but remains completely undeterred.

He assures us that his obsessive fawning over news stories involving women teachers sleeping with young students is not Freudian in any way, although he admits something similar once happened to him. Uniquely, ’Puter is unable to speak, read, or write Russian, but he is able to sing it fluently.

Geep joined the order in the mid-1980s. He arrived at the Castle door with dozens of steamer trunks and an inarticulate hissing creature of astonishingly low intelligence he calls “Sleestak.” Ghettoputer appears to make his wishes known to Sleestak, although no one is sure whether this is the result of complex sign language, expert body posture reading, or simply beating Sleestak with a rubber mallet.

‘Puter suggests the Czar suck it.