Secretary of the Treasury Janet L. Yellen Sends Letter to Congressional Speaker on Debt Limit

'The Astronomer'

Johannes Vermeer 1668

We now call it Data Forecasting

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen sent a letter to Honorable Kevin McCarthy the current House Speaker and other Congressional leadership on May 1st, 2023. She raised a few concerns about the time frames for potential debt-payment impasse around June 1 depending on tax receipts and other information (This basically gives notice that there could be an issue. I wonder if this happens regularly?)

You can read....

'Secretary of the Treasury Janet L. Yellen Sends Letter to Congressional Leadership on the Debt Limit'

Thinking about it because we are a little bit of a pickle. We can't really keep spending and we must also compete internationally. That means we need to use resources wisely in order to bump up the system. That often leads us to think about what is essential and what is not essential on a government level. 

Of course we also need to allocate resources where they are needed and we can reasonably ensure that we are improving our bottom line. I think we need an overhaul of costs, focus, and practice. I'm thinking of how a change in economic and social fundamentals (remember that economics is actually social behavior) might also provide an opportunity to change our approach. 

(In general, I'm an optimistic person who believes if we all put our heads together we could come up with a solution. That would require commitment to the health of the nation beyond the needs of any particular stakeholder or party.). 

In general if we have time it might be helpful to consider the following....

(I'm well aware the devil is in the details and lots of people with lots of opinions. Just ideas...feel free to toss....).

1. Define what the big goals are. 1-3 principles both sides (make sure it is in alignment with the publics needs as a general societal collective. The collective perspective.) can agree with in principle (It develops focus in thinking).

2. Look at what is essential and what is not essential. Create a few categories that allow one to sort of break programs out into different categories.

3. Of what is essential focus on rethinking how it is done, its effectiveness, and its contribution to society. As you revamp effectiveness and efficiency should be on the forefront of our minds. (Sometimes we have existing research and sometimes we have to create new research to understand these bigger problems. Money well spent.). 

4. Of those things that are not essential we would need to prioritize based on available left over budget. That should include effectiveness and efficiency. Some of these contribute to the general well being/life satisfaction growth environment and some of these contribute to the economic environment. They both are necessary for long term stability. 

I guess one could go on and on and on about politics and money. The point is that these are complex issues but it might be possible to sort of figure out some way of looking at programs and thinking about the long term needs of the nation. We move the disagreements from just dollar amounts to an agreement that essentially if we can improve the system and take an honest look at where we want to go and what we need to be there we can find some lens to look at and improve our programs. Many times there is lots of fat, red tape, inefficient internal organizational/departmental information and resource paths, misappropriation, costly transactions and much more.  blah blah blah