My how time flies.

One year ago, I was licking my political wounds after a sound trouncing at the ballot box. Oh, the things I would do differently. And the same. A friend stopped me in the parking awhile back and asked me if I'd learned my lesson. I asked him what lesson that would be. He said from his experience in the state and national congresses, nobody really wants to cut taxes and spending but everybody says they want to. Everybody secretly wants theirs, their baillouts, their handouts, their freebies. And telling anybody you're going to take it away will not get you votes. I said that wasn't the lesson I had in mind but that's a good one. And I sort-of believe that, maybe 90%. For many, its not about grabbing someone else's tax dollar for themselves but for all the worthwhile causes they believe in; their mental health organization or their youth mentoring organization or their library support organization or their city betterment group or their save the homeless program or, or, or,,, the list goes on ad infinitem. I continue to believe that we're basically good, deep inside, although one has to look pretty deep for some, a kernal is there. At least that's the hope. But I also believe that we don't learn from our mistakes or the mistakes of others, until its too late. We don't save for a rainy day, we have too many credit cards, we don't pay attention to elected official activities and we don't know enough about the way the world works. Perhaps the God who protects motherless puppies and little birds will continue to look out for us but I don't think He will continue to support our legislated theft of present and future tax payers for too much longer. Too many of us have figured out how to crack the state and federal piggy bank for our own purposes and once the greed genie is out of the bottle, it will be very tough to stuff him back in. Too many public employee and teacher unions are demanding more cushy raises and benefits while too many of us wander around looking for work and watching our tax bill rise.
And too many of us are still voting for someone because we heard or saw his or her name six or seven times on a news broadcast but don't know diddly-squat about how he or she will pull us back from this economic abyss. All we want to know is will he or she give me mine.
For now, let us think good thoughts, love our neighbors, prepare for precinct caucuses next month and cross our fingers that someone, somewhere develops the whit of common sense they were born with and somehow we all catch the same wonderful condition. We're in for a bumpy ride without it.