Yikes! My Daughter Is On The Hook for $2,293

The federal government's commitment to bail out our banks and mortgage giants is running around 700 billion dollars.

That means my seven-year old is going to need a bigger allowance or she's going to have to sell a ton of lemonade.

By my numbers, every single American (all 305,217,000+ of us) is now on the hook for $2,293 to cover that nearly three-quarters of a trillion dollar commitment.

Of course, I guess I'll have to front her the money (that's what parents are supposed to do, right?) That means our family of three is now looking at $6,879 to assure Wall Street has happy traders.

Now you can see why I want to know what Barack Obama and John McCain want to do about taxes and government spending instead of debating experience, lipstick on a pig and Alaska state troopers.

I'll admit, I'm no financial guy. I can add, subtract, multiply and divide. I haven't attempted algebra since the ninth grade and I couldn't do it then, either.

I can balance my checkbook and plan how I'm going to spend my money.

I do know that in my financial world - and yours - the only way to turn around the bottom line is to make more money, spend less of it or both.

However, I want to know how tax cuts can happen when we've just committed to a well over half trillion dollar bailout on top of our other current spending priorities? (They can't according to a non-partisan analysis listed in an earlier blog).

Oh, don't forget that mortgage industry bailout.

So, I want to know what they have planned now.

I don't want to hear about campaign strategy in national news coverage. I don't want to hear McCain and Obama operatives on cable news or the Sunday talk shows arguing about "states in play" or poll bumps.

Because here's the bottom line: for my seven-year old to pay her share of this buyout, I'm going to have to raise her allowance from $1.00 a week to $5.00 a week (a 400% increase).

That means I'll have to pay her that allowance until 2017, until I have her covered.

And in 2017, we will be in the first year for the president who would follow McCain or Obama, if the winner this November were to serve two terms.

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson talks with CBS News Face the Nation host Bob Schieffer about the $700 billion bailout plan the Treasury Department has proposed. Paulson describes why he thinks the plan is necessary.