Planning to save money is at the top of Statista's list of 2024 New Year's Resolutions. In the past, resolutions like losing weight and eating healthy foods have been more popular, but times are changing. 

The inflation that's making average Americans so miserable right now was preventable.  Many of us knew, once the Federal Reserve started printing money during Covid that at some point, we would all have to pay. And now those bills are now coming due.  While the situation reveals terrible leadership at the top of American society, the Americans attempting to improve their financial literacy deserve commendation. 

But what about our political class?

Are the Americans responsible for the money flow at the national level trying to get their financial house in order, too?

It looks unlikely.  As we mentioned in a previous article, Congress hasn't passed a budget with no government shutdowns and no continuing resolutions since 1997,

Think about what you were doing in 1997.  I was in high school. That was a generation ago.  We've had a full generation of a Congress that cannot get its financial house in order. And worse, almost no Congressional members pretend to try.

Is this incompetence?  I'm sure a lot of it is.  Yet the problems are too deep to blame solely on that.