#765, Operating Cuts

Imagine that you weren’t wasting anything in your budget every month. You were already cut to the bone. No lattes, no big screen flat panel TVs. No sprinkler system in your yard.
No clubhouse or golf course privileges.
You were spending what you had to spend—but you had to spend it. What if 16% of your income came from a fund voted on by your neighbors? You still earned the money; it just wasn’t absolutely guaranteed that your neighbors would pay it.
They might get PO’d at something. The big oil companies might raise the price of a gallon of gas by 40%. The value of their homes might go up—which they were happy about as long as they could sell it for a profit—but upset about when they found themselves between assessments when the bottom fell out of the real estate market.
So they took it out on you and slashed your income by 16%. Not for any good reason. Just because they felt like getting back at someone in the “system”.
So tell me. Could you live with 16% less? Really?
I heard some old guys talking at the club the other day. It showed me how people sometimes confuse blame.
“Hey,” said one of the guys, “‘they’ are raising the price of gas again.”
“Yeah,” said another “and ‘they’re’ raising property taxes too.”
“And I don’t have enough retirement because ‘they’ screwed me on Wall Street” chimed in a third.
“Yeah,” agreed a fourth, “‘They’ are trying to charge us more for schools too.”
In these guys’ minds the nebulous “they” were responsible for everything. So they were perfectly willing to sacrifice the future of our kids. It was the only place where they had a choice.
Cutting the school’s already slashed to the bone budget by 16%. Cutting off our country’s best hope to spite their face. Lazy thinking.
Do you care?
I do.
Sometimes we lose the things we care about the most because we’re too lazy also.
Too lazy to care enough to vote. We think, hey, I’ll relax and watch the tube. Someone else will do it. The levy always passes doesn’t it? Who wouldn’t vote for the kids?
Angry and hurt people looking to hurt someone back, that’s who.
If you care, show it.
Vote.
America, ya gotta love it.