While you may not know it; merchants have to pay a fee to use the credit card machines which typically is 2% of the actual purchase price. To defray this cost of doing business many retailers factor the 2% fee into the shelf price for items which leaves cash-paying customers shelling out the same 2% overhead on their purchases too. During this year your family will spend on average $427 to cover these fees while the credit card companies net a cool $48 million from the interchange fees.

You can't make that kind of money in the U.S. without attracting attention from Congress and lobbying groups especially when your industry is already under fire for high interest rates and complicated anti-consumer fees and fine print. Congress is looking to regulate the interchange fee with the Credit Card Fair Fee Act of 2008. This fee is a cost of doing business; get rid of it and you risk a less reliable system or having the cost will moved to a different area under a new name. Even if the retailers can negotiate a lower fee, how likely is it that they will drop prices to reflect it? Consumers are already adjusted to the current price so the profit will stay with the retailer, not be passed to the consumer.

A couple big stories out today in BusinessWeek and the Los Angeles Times talk about how state and local governments are getting pinched by both high gas prices and falling home values, which cut property tax revenues. They're just as broke as the rest of us. Governments are coming up money-saving schemes that range from creative to despicable. With expenses up and revenues down, governments are hoping to boost other revenues, like traffic tickets and lottery sales. So unless you plan to make up the budget shortfall, watch out.

Twenty-four states are in the red this year, the Times says, quoting stats from the National Conference of State Legislatures. They're cutting the favorite targets of school budgets and public health benefit. Local governments are cutting back on services like buses or parking the bookmobile. Some places are cutting back on all the unnecessary grass-mowing. BusinessWeek says Stillwater, Oklahoma cut its mowing in half, letting parkland turn into prairie. Somewhere Lady Bird Johnson must be smiling.

As much as no one wants to cut back on public safety, for some districts it's inevitable. Cops around the country have to watch their gas spending. Some are switching to alternate vehicles, like golf carts, or just doing foot patrols. Cops in El Paso County, Colo., saw their gas bill climb from $160,000 in 2003 to a projected $700,000 next year, the Times reported, so they stopped car patrols, a move they say will mean they won't be able to catch as many drunk drivers. BusinessWeek says Arizona is going to boost traffic tickets from cameras -- how many speeding tickets can a cop in a golf cart issue -- and stepped up lottery sales. Earlier this year California hatched a new lottery plan and Colorado decided to increase ticket fees. Expect to see these schemes around the country.

In what is surely to become a screaming nation-wide trend, New Jersey state Governor, Jon Corzine has given fair warning that most likely he'll soon be cutting heads. A report from Reuters News Service, in referencing comments from Barbara Buono, chair of the state Senate budget committee, indicated that Corzine is considering "consolidation scenarios" as remedy for a $2.5 billion state budget shortfall.

It is being speculated that payroll reductions of as many as 3,000 employees might be accomplished through early retirement offerings, but the long term effects of that solution on existing pension funds have yet to be fully examined. Buono told Reuters, "Our understanding is that (Gov. Corzine) doesn't anticipate layoffs." I interpret that to mean the pink slips shall be forthcoming.

Similar scenarios are certain to begin looming across the entire nation as property tax roles begin to feel the affects of massive real estate devaluations. As 2008 property tax bills begin to arrive in the hands of homeowners, there are surely going to be widespread demands for reassessment of properties to properly reflect value losses inflicted over the past 12 months. The cascading effect will mean that municipalities shall soon begin to see decreased funding for local operations. Government employee payroll populations shall soon begin to come under very close scrutiny.

The snowball is just getting started, in New Jersey no less.

As if the government doesn't get a bad enough rap -- admittedly, frequently deserved -- now there's this. The Federal Times just reported on a new survey that just came out on Tuesday, which suggests that contractors don't profit from government work as much as is commonly thought. The survey was conducted by Grant Thornton, who isn't some suave movie actor or a relative to Cary Grant. Just in case you thought so. Obviously, I didn't. I knew from the start that it was a huge accounting/consulting firm. Really.

So, anyway, 69% of government contractors last year made profits of less than 10 percent from their government business, and seven percent of those contractors actually made no profits. Only 12 percent of the more than 100 government contractors queried brought in more than 15 percent from their government contracts in fiscal 2006.

And some of the reasons companies aren't making profits? Surprisingly, there's an awful lot of red tape involved when working with the government. I, for one, as Captain Renault in Casablanca famously said, "Shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on here." OK, the quote doesn't match up completely to this example.

If you're having trouble with the high costs at the pharmacy and you're being forced to choose between putting a meat loaf on the table or following doctor's orders, then you need to know that there's a bucket load of options available to you for seeking help to pay for your prescription medications.

You can start out by calling the customer service department of the company which manufactures your medication. If you don't know who makes it, ask your pharmacist for help. When you call the manufacturer, make it clear that you are having trouble paying for your medications. You'll probably be surprised at how quickly they try to help you by referring you to programs or agencies that can help you.

While you're talking to your pharmacist ask them if they can provide any additional options for you. There are programs at the county, state and federal levels which seek to provide assistance with prescription costs and your pharmacist should know about these programs. Don't forget to ask your pharmacist about generic alternatives also.

Even if you're not a member, you might consult with AARP.