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MAKING CENTS OUT OF THE NEWS
Blog #30
(September 15th, 2011)
Thirteen Could Be a Lucky Number for the Joint Committee
By Tom McAllister, CFP®
If anyone is suited to offer advice to Congress, it would be my well-respected fellow CFP® member Eleanor Blayley, who serves as the consumer advocate for our Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards.
And, while I hardly expect Congress to agree to the wise suggestion Blayley outlines in the current issue of Financial Planning magazine, it makes so much sense I decided to share it with my “Making Cents Out of the News” blog readers.
Congress needs to add a Certified Financial Planner to the newly created 12-person Deficit Reduction Committee, Blayley asserts, describing the U.S. debt crisis as political theater at its best. She describes the goings-on in the media and among politicians as worthy of Shakespearean drama, complete with suspense, rhetoric, and grand entrances and exits by protagonists. But our present drama is leaving the audience sorely disappointed, she laments.
Blayley recalls Humpty-Dumpty, referring to the Joint Committee on Deficit Reduction being charged with accomplishing what all the Congress’ horses and all the Congress’ men could not – putting the U.S. fiscal situation back together again.
A CFP professional could be of tremendous help on the committee, Blayley points out. Trained in the six-step financial planning process and armed with the CFP Code of Ethics, the CFP would put goals before strategies instead of the other way around, and, true to financial planning guidelines, would make sure the interests of the client (the American taxpayers) came first!
“The CFP might share with the committee that rarely, if ever, are issues of shortfall solved with a single approach, but require a coordinated strategy”, says Blayley, adding that, like U.S. consumers, the U.S. government itself is overloaded with debt . “But no CFP would ever advise an overspending and under-earning client to go out and borrow more money,” she remarks wryly, “even if his name is Uncle Sam.” Further, she cautions, the CFP would be there to remind the committee that it is impossible to get financially healthy without a detailed budget.
Were such commonsense wisdom rejected by the Joint Committee as “inadequate to the fiscal complexities of the world’s largest economy”, Blayley would point out that “our financial planning profession has managed to do something the political process has not: Increase the confidence of American consumers.”
Blayley concludes her article by observing that “building confidence may be the most critical task faced by the Gang of 12”, adding that “The return of confidence could be even better than gold in this crisis.”
When it comes to restoring consumer confidence, I’m happy to report that this October 15 marks Financial Planning Day in various large cities around the country, including our own. Volunteer CFPs will be on duty (I will be on site to help here in Indy), offering advice to anyone with financial problems and questions. With several hundred days of volunteer committee work in Washington, D.C. under my belt, I’ve continued to do my part for the cause.
I suspect that each member of the Gang of 12 can find a Financial Planning Day nearby. Those committee members would do their employers (the American public) a great service by availing themselves of the type of guidance CFP’s have to offer.
Oh, how I wish the government would take Blayley’s advice to heart and bring on that “lucky thirteenth” CFP committee member!
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