My vision of fiscal responsibility (that I try to live personally) involve paying what I owe and living within my means (so really trying to not owe anything, student loans for seminary aside). I pay fines when I get speeding tickets. I pay off my credit card each month. I think these are best practices, but I don't really talk about them. I certainly don't lecture people about what I think are reckless purchases or poor priorities. Sometimes I'm too concerned with not running out of money that I don't let myself live. But other times the sacrifice of not spending pays off in big ways. That's what I think about fiscal responsibility on the personal level.
So I was surprised when I saw this on ThinkProgress:
The Chicago Sun-Times broke the story that Tea Party freshman Rep. Joe Walsh (R-IL), who has spent months lecturing President Obama and Democrats on fiscal responsibility, owes $117,437 in child support to his ex-wife and three children.
I'm the child of a divorce. Part of that divorce was child support dues that very often went unpaid. Did I ever feel like my dad was a deadbeat dad? Not really. My mom worked hard to make sure that we could live with what we had - fiscal responsibility. But things might've been easier if daddy had kept what he was supposed to. Oh, and Rep. Walsh says that it's okay to not pay because it's where "real America" (whatever that is) is.
At least dad didn't lecture us about mom being a reckless spender or anything (that I can recall). Read it all: Rep. Joe Walsh Defends Not Paying $117,000 In Child Support: ‘This Is Where Real America Is'. I hope he loses his license, among anything else a judge will do to him.
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