When it comes to government and what it can do or should do for people, the first consideration is solvency.

Solvency is the ability of an organization to "meet its long-term debts and financial obligations. Solvency can be an important measure of financial health, since it's one way of demonstrating ability to manage operations into the foreseeable future."

Very simply put: can you afford to do what you endeavor to do? For politicians who spend other people's money, there is no personal stake in such a question. For them, you either just go into more debt or raise taxes to balance increased spending. But let's not forget that ours is a government that fails audit after audit. Every government fails audits.

You never hear politicians discuss solvency, but that word needs to be top of mind. Insolvency is disaster for the future. If you love your children, you don't hand them an insolvent government.

In 1990, a little-known academic published a book entitled The Collapse of Complex Societies. A short and brilliant look at a couple of dozen societies through history and their collapses, and Joseph Tainter arrived at a simple and somewhat obvious conclusion: increasingly complex civilizations have to spend more and more to get less and less, eventually outrunning their resources and ability to manage such resources until insolvency occurs and therefore collapse ensues.

When my children were young, if one was unable to keep their room clean, I would sigh and start putting the toys that lay about into a room I labeled "the toy closet." I didn't want to remove their toys from the child, but as I would tell them: "You have to manage what you have, and if you can't, then logically you have too much. Prove to me that you can maintain order and I'll let you start retrieving your stuff from the toy closet."

Government is obviously unable to manage what it's been granted to manage. Time to start paring back what is in its control. A smaller government is, obviously, easier to manage. And is, obviously, more affordable, requiring less taxation from the people.

Solvency matters. If any part of government cannot manage its operations, as demonstrated by failing audits and running deficits, then it's time to reduce its operations. For example, should the US Postal Service be privatized? You betcha. Government-run postal service is insolvent.

I hope those in government start using the term "solvency" with regularity. If not, we the people need to do so. Because insolvency is no option.