On Deflecting Bullets and Waist High Grass

I feel certain many of you have watched the classic TV program “Wonder Woman” staring Lynda Carter. Well, I’ve become fond of saying that in this climate of out- of-control government I feel like I’m wearing her bullet-deflecting bracelets and have to summon their power on an hourly basis.

For instance, right here in Arkansas, if folks are paying attention, they’d see the causality rate of our hard earned money growing faster than the worst episodes of the Justice League.

We Arkansans supposedly have the reassurance of a “Balanced Budget” government. While true enough on paper, even a modestly savvy Internet super hero can deduce that our state is actually more than $4.3 billion in debt. You may wonder how that can be.  It is because there are invisible dollar fields available for those who know how to caress and manipulate the system

Arkansas has borrowed over $400 million from the federal government just to cover our unemployment liabilities. I might add here that we are borrowing at the rate of something like $18 million a month to meet that unfunded commitment. We also just recently extended the length of time a person in Arkansas can draw unemployment.

My 17-year-old daughter made an astute observation the other day while perusing the paper’s want ads. “If there are so many people out of work and looking for jobs,” she said, “then why are there so many jobs looking for people?”  Telling her that most people can rake in more money on state unemployment than they actually earn at a job led her to see the de-incentivizing and demoralizing effects of this government program.

Taking my Wonder Woman analogy to a local level, such as right here in Fayetteville, we have the Advertising and Promotions budget which is 1 percent of our Hotel, Motel and Restaurant Tax that brought in $4.6 million in 2009 and the A&P Commissioners just distributed $149,292 of these tax dollars to more than a dozen area events and festivals of their choosing.

While I realize this particular tax is earmarked for this specific purpose, the revenue still all comes from the same pockets, namely yours and mine, as well as those of the visitors who eat out and stay in Fayetteville each year.   My point is that we desperately need to oversee the budgets and spending habits of our local as well as our state governing bodies. To achieve that, we must be a people that are willing to step out of our predictable comfort zones, maybe put some hobbies and “fun” activities on hold so that we can get our overgrown, thick grassy yards trimmed back down to maintenance stage. ‘Cause right now, friends, we have an uncut hay field growing around us.

Will you fire up a mower? Will you invest some time and energy to join in for the common good? And with the media increasingly failing in its First Amendment responsibilities, will you become a watchdog for your family and friends?