I am good at budgeting – runs in my blood. As I mentioned before, I am perpetually budgeting. This habit comes from my parents. My father was an accountant, and my mother is perpetually budgeting, though these days it is about time. (“Larry, we need to leave the house in 5 minutes so we can get to the train by 8:20!”)  Having to be careful to make ends meet instills that sort of thing in you.

I walked down to my basement when I got home today, minutes before 2:00 pm.  The television was on and it took some strength for me to not get very annoyed.  I quickly deduced that the television had been on since 9:00 am, when my four-and-a-half-year-old son Shamai came upstairs and instead began watching in my room.  He also needs to be reminded to turn off lights.  Kids!  I’ll have to remind him about the memo. “What memo?”  He said that too. While I did not actually send out a memo, I certainly thought about it.   It would have said something like, “We appreciate you being particularly aware of your electrical usage. Make sure to turn off lights when exiting a room, do not keep the refrigerator open for excessive amounts of time, and turn off the television upon exiting the room. Thank you in advance for your cooperation. The Management.”

The politicians finally came to an agreement and the debt ceiling was raised. They raised the debt ceiling by over 2 trillion dollars and are supposedly cutting 2.5 trillion dollars off of future debt.  It does not seem to make sense. Instead of cutting the deficit, it will just not be growing as fast as it would have been.  Well, that’s not so comforting.  Remember the movie Dave?  Kevin Kline is called on to become president after the real president had a serious medical issue.   The big joke is that the President and Dave are played by Kevin Kline.  So when Dave, the regular guy becomes president, no one except for the inner circle realizes there is a new president.  Anyway, I remember a scene where Dave’s accountant, played by Charles Grodin, is called to the White House. He spends the night and by the next morning when he leaves, after going through the budget line by line, he has balanced the budget.

I think we should give that guy a call about the budget.  I would give it a shot, but I’m still trying to reduce our line item on electrical usage.