Sad and Silly

Notes of Concern…
…Jack Blair


SAD and SILLY

I was listening to television news recently and heard two disappointing reports. I want to share them with you.

1. half of Americans pay no income tax
2. only half of the multi- billion stimulus money has been spent


I have worked my entire life. My wife works. My four children work. We pay income taxes. We look forward to retirement with social security and Medicare.

We must be crazy.

People who do not work and who pay no taxes enjoy the same benefits we do. And if the government runs short, they want to decrease my benefits to make sure there is enough to go around.

When I think of all those tax dollars I could have kept I realize what a different life I would be living.

When our economy was in the tank the government told us that they needed to spend billions to get us back on track.

It was needed. It should be immediate. We had better hurry.

The Congress met long into the night. People sat on the edge of their chairs to see if the money bill could be passed in time to save our nation from economic collapse.

Do you remember how long ago that was?

Do you believe that half of what we “had to have” is still sitting around stimulating absolutely nothing.

Then I watched another news report. Bad decision!

This one dealt with homeland security. As an example, they selected a very small, hardly used border crossing spot in Maine to make their point.

We were told the hours of operation of this crossing were short and it wasn’t open on Sundays. Sometimes no cars pass through at all on a given day. We have a little house there with all the bells and whistles. It sits very close to a private residence.

In the infinite wisdom of our government, we have decided to spend millions of dollars to upgrade this place. As part of the project we will build 2-3 houses for the staff.

Staff!

This place could be run part time by one or two local residents. People who would probably be glad to have the job.

Then it was decided there should be a proper parking lot. In order to prepare such a fine parking space they must take the front yard of a local resident.

Eminent domain you know!

The reporter interviewed the neighbors and townspeople. Absolutely no one can understand why this is being done. When they asked through formal channels, the response was “national security.”

I might mention that on the other side of this border crossing Canada has a modest wood building and no plans to spend a dime on it.

I might also mention that any terrorist wanting to cross from Canada into the US would not need to come down this road. He could walk through the woods, paddle across the lake, or perhaps just fly over.

It hasn’t been a good television week for me.

I have a feeling in my gut that we are appropriating and spending money “willy -nilly“and we have absolutely no structure in place to determine what is actually critical, what is simply pork barrel politics, and how we are ever going to repay our debts.

We seem to be on a speeding train with no engineer, conductor or porter. We are in the dining car enjoying a great meal with some drinks and we seem absolutely oblivious to how this must end.

The solution to every problem is not money.

The solution is to have the right people working on the solution.