Have you ever had an overwhelming desire to learn about the deficit?

Yeah, I don't think I have either. But once my father decides he's going to tell you something, you sit down, shut up, and listen. 

Today's topic was the deficit. It was fairly short too, so hopefully you'll come away from this somewhat more enlightened and not bored to tears. 

He explained it like this:

Imagine you're a working person. You're on your own, have a steady income. But, you're spending $350 more than you're earning. And you've been doing so for the last three months. 

This month, you realize, "crap! I've been spending too much!" 

So what do you do? You budget. You look at what you've been spending and decide what you can cut out. 
 
You look through your purchases and stuff and you realize that once a week you've been eating at McDonalds for breakfast. Each breakfast is about $4.25. You don't really need that, and decide to cut that from your schedule.

Is your problem solved now? What? It's not? But you cut that extra McDonalds from your spending!

Oh... 4.25*4 is actually only $17. Not quite the $350 you need. Just to not overspend this month, never mind paying back the last three months' debts. 

That's a little like what the U.S. government has done. 

We've been deficit spending for at least the last 12 years. Going from an already significant debt, that makes our current debt enormous. 

In real life terms, this is what happened:

We were deficit spending. About to hit the debt ceiling (which is the maximum borrowing power of the government.) The government either needed to revise the budget or raise the debt ceiling. Democrats wanted to raise the ceiling. Republicans did not. So they said that the ceiling could be raised, if cuts were also made. 

So they put together a group of people to decide how to fix/make the budget. They had a time limit, and if they didn't decide on something before March 1, 2013, then the sequester would be enacted. This means things would get cut. Things that no one wanted to get cut.

The government said, "DON'T WORRY Y'ALL, THIS COMMITTEE WILL FIGURE THIS SHIT OUT BECAUSE NO ONE WANTS THESE CUTS." 

March 1st, guess what happened? 

Yupp. 

Those cuts. 

Did you notice?

Nope. 

Neither did I.

That's because those cuts were, as my father said, "a drop in the bucket." It was that $4.25 at McDonalds once a week.

Then he went a little into how Medicare and Medicaid were the problem, but yeah. 

There's the deficit for you. 

Feel enlightened.