Of course there is a lot that is the same.  Both have income and expenses, set by annual budgets.  Both are deeply affected by the stock market and other investments.  In this simple way, we can all pretend we are in the same boat.

But the truth is much different.

First, unlike the average family, the federal and state governments have tremendous control over their own revenues.  When a family has a budget shortfall, it usually cuts the cable or buys ramen noodles in bulk because it can’t really touch its income.  Governments can.

Second, and more distressing in the current climate, family budgets have only a few influencing factors, such as job stability/mobility and investment performance.  Governments have millions of variables.  For us to only look at budget deficits as a cash-flow problem and not the direct ramifications of income decisions, we are only playing with half of the deck.

It also means that we ignore the causes of our economic distress.  It would be simple politically for us to suffer through the next decade, sacrificing many of the things we have come to expect out of our government just to avoid an annual tax increase of a few hundred dollars.  But ignoring the causes means that we never address the presenting issue—the fiscal health of our governments.

In Michigan, we saw the disastrous effects of massive tax cuts—years before the country created massive deficits for two rounds of truly irresponsible tax cuts in 2001 and 2003.  This means, that if we were to compare our family’s budget to the government, those chosen tax cuts were like you and I choosing to give thousands of dollars to our corporate masters with the argument that “they gave us too much of their hard-earned money.”   To actually examine our recent past, the obvious correlation between the budget surplus in 2000 and the 2001 deficit is so striking in its simplicity.

For me, I have watched several large Episcopal churches fret over budget shortfalls without addressing an increase in revenue.  At the same time, they inevitably make the same simplistic assumption that it is performance-based and therefore out of the congregation’s control.

It is a problem with revenue.  And revenue, in governments and large organizations is something over which we have more control than our families.

So why do we assume that the hardest decision is to make cuts to the things that bring vitality and life to our lives and not choosing to increase revenue?  Wouldn’t the harder decision be to walk up to someone and ask for more money?