Several years ago, I drew a cartoon that depicted a politician explaining the difference between "tax and spend," and "borrow and spend," to a small child. "Borrowing," he says, "is taxing somebody who isn't old enough to vote."

A lot of people seem to think that if it comes from the Federal Government, it's free money. "Heck, they'll just print some more!" They don't understand the correlation between the federal budget and a household budget, and why should they? This stuff is too abstruse for most people to understand, which is why Congress has gotten away with it for so long.

It's like pork barrel spending, also known as "bringing home the bacon." Say you go to the store and buy a barrel of pork (let's pretend it's still sold that way). On the way out, your Congressman waylays you and takes the barrel. You go home, the doorbell rings, and the Congressman proudly presents you with the pork barrel, as if he'd slaughtered the pig himself. After he leaves, you open it up, and find some of the pork inside is missing. Call it a processing fee.