A Disease By Any Other Name...


...Is STILL a disease. But it could be worse, just not by much.

DISEASE: (n)- from the 14 century French - 1: trouble 2: a condition of the living animal or plant body of of one of its parts that impairs the performance of a vital function : sickness, malady 3:a harmful development (as in a social institution).

Take some of the latest things going on around Fort Wayne, and this word sticks to them like Monkey Snot (aka Gorilla Glue)!
FWCS is still looking at taxing the working class to the tune of $500 million....(sure just lemme go out back and pick a few dozen "Franklins" off of my "money tree"....no problem).

The city is still trying to ramrod the "Costaplenty Square" project down our throats when it's not wanted by a solid majority of the citizenry....(sure, just let me crap out a few thousand bucks to cover that...no problem).

But wait...we're not quite done yet. The City Water and Sewer is going to raise our rates AGAIN by about 25%. But gee, Bob...didn't they JUST do that a few months ago? Yep, that they did, but I guess that 50% is a nicer, rounder figure. So I guess I'll have to start distilling my own PISS to water my lawn and save some money then, because I DON'T have a frigging money tree out back, and I DON'T have fifty dollar bills flying out of my ass like there's no tomorrow (although the city & county MUST THINK we all do...talk about a fantasy existence)!

What we've got here is nothing short of a virulent DISEASE on our hands. Now we could call it "City Council", or we could call it "King Richard", or we could even call it the FWCS. But we'd only be describing the symptoms, and not the root cause. The REAL cause is this CONSTANT TAXING (of both our finances AND our patience). But a lot of people MUST be OK with this, because I'm not seeing or hearing the outcry that SHOULD be accompanying this insidious device by which the politicians manage to relieve us of our hard-earned wages and savings...and to what end? Sorry, but I'm not feeling any "relief" anywhere along this trail. And let's face it...to "relieve" someone of their finances this consistently is NOT any form of "relief" (to that person anyway), is it?

Think about it.....any REAL disease eats away at you...slowly...inexorably, until you can no longer fight back. Wow, that sure sounds a lot like all these higher taxes we're being saddled with, doesn't it? It's eating away at whatever we are attempting to squirrel away for our future. Hell, it's eating away at our MONTHLY expenditures. WE are the ones having to decide whether to eat OR pay that property tax. WE are the ones having to take shorter showers or forego watering our brown lawns in the summer so we can process sewage from somewhere else with brand new pumps. WE are the ones constantly being asked to "make sacrifices" for a better tomorrow. Well, I've seen a $hitload of tomorrows, and I'm NOT seeing the "better" part these politicos have been promising. Sure, I can have an iPod (big f$cking deal...don't need one), or have a new car (costing twice as much as my car when ITwas new, with twice the problems to potentially go wrong), or a newer home (built more cheaply than mine was with 3 times the taxes)...no thanks. I'll pass.

And yet, with the stroke of a pen, the STATE legislators voted THEMSELVES a nice NINE-THOUSAND DOLLAR RAISE! I suppose THEY won't be worrying much about WATER RATES...or PROPERTY TAX...or SCHOOL REPAIR COSTS. Seems like THAT dollar amount would cover ALL the hikes we're privy to THIS year nicely in Fort Wayne.....funny how that works.

There are those people that, when they know they're suffering from an incurable disease, toss caution to the wind, doing things they would never have done in the past, travelling places they would never go to, and basically start to live life as fully as they can for whatever time they have left. The old TV show "Run For Your Life", starring Ben Gazzara comes to mind (from the 60s).

Our choices are simple...either we roll over and slowly (and financially) die, or start doing things we would never think of doing...namely question everyone and everything when it comes to all these TAXES. It becomes a study in rationale as to whether we live for today or even think of being able to plan for the future. As things stand NOW..."slightly bleak" would a reasonable asessment, unless you're independently wealthy and in that coveted top ten percent of the population (which anyone with math skills would know places the REST of us in that ninety percent of the rapidly growing working-class poor).

We need to get these "spendaholics" the hell out of whatever office they're in...while we've still got pots to piss in, because tomorrow, they might just start taxing (or even banning) THOSE as well!