I thought it would be easy. Do a little reading, take a few notes and then explain it to the audience. That’s what a journalist does. I thought today, I would boil down the Fiscal Cliff---which to paraphrase Mark Twain, everyone is talking about..but no one is doing anything about…to give you in effect…Cliff Notes on the subject. Here’s what I learned. The government is on a much larger scale…much like my garage. It looks to the untrained observer, kind of neat and orderly---until you try to find something…like Christmas decorations…and you realize what an unweildly hopeless mess it has become.

Consider these annoying facts. The government spends about 40 billion dollars a day. A day.If you cut the wages, and benefits of every federal worker, you’d probably reach about 9 days of spending.

63 percent of the federal budget is right now non negotiable….it’s pre ordered spending on everything from social security payments to unemployment benefits to welfare checks. This year we are spending north of 500 billion dollars on the military. Well, you say, we have to do…a strong national defense is paramount to our safety. Tough point to argue….but we are not exactly shopping Wal Mart…we are outspending the next 17 nations…the chinas…great britians…and Japans of the world…Germany…the Saudis..russia…all the folks we fought with or against in World War Two….and the big soviet monolith we outspent in the cold war….we’re outspending them heavily…and yet…several of those nations remain real threats…

Health Care is another voracious consumer of dollars….health care spending….could hit 33 percent in the next few years..it took just 10 percent of uncle sams money in 1960…

Want to know what happened….the surgeon general and company convinced many to quit smoking….so we’re living longer…and uncle sam has decades of bills he didn’t expect…to be paid for the pronlonged health care of tens of millions.

Is there a way out….haven’t gotten that far. But …every since program that gets a red cent from Uncle Sam---takes a 5 percent cut…and the rest of us---whatever we make..pay two percent more in taxes...some may feel the pinch..others won't--but the cuts will be fare---it's a start……it might be enough to jump start wall street inspire main street ad some jobs, maybe get some get people off welfare.. dumb idea...oh, so you've seen my garage..