I briefly want to touch upon the on-going situation with budgeting for essentials. I think its a situation that can be avoidable the next time around.
What we have is a strained budget where essentials compete for non-essentials from the same budget. This need not be the case. As in vehicles that have two sources of power, the main source, and the accessory power source, so also Governement can have two resevoirs of funding. The main reservoir, and the accessory resevoir – which is not touched by the main reservoir. So the accessory budget always functions, even if the main reservoir is temporarily shut down by a Government impasse.
Alternatively, in such unforseen cases, since the essential need is only between 4 – 8 B, and the total cost of the programs is about 23 B, this need can well be serviced by private individuals whose wealth individually, and more easily collectively, can accomodate such goodwill losses.