Humpday Happenings...
If you're like MOST normal people in Fort Wayne, you awoke this morning, turned on the local news or grabbed the paper and immediately began to seethe, when you read about ALL these looming TAX HIKES in our fair city.
Well, you're NOT alone.
Seems the city needs a FEDERALLY-MANDATED sewer fix up, and that's gonna COST us taxpayers...almost DOUBLE a month what you're already paying on your utility bill. It's an 86% HIKE.
WTG, King Henry!
And remember...it's GOOD to be KING.
Maybe it's time for the city to hold out it's hand to the ALMIGHTY out in Washington, and ask more MORE MONEY...
Hell, everyone ELSE is doing it, right?
Get the FEDS to pay for THEIR mandate...how simple is that?
And maybe the city can ask for some FEDERAL money for all this local BRIDGE REPAIR the county has dissed us on.
Used to be a time when the RESPONSIBILITY of maintaining bridges in OUR COUNTY resided solely with the COUNTY Commission.
Hey people...take a damn frigging PAY CUT for once in your lives.
We, the taxpayers have to do "more with less"...how's about you taking a page from OUR book for a change, instead of running this city and county "on the fly", as it were?
It's small wonder cities do things to THEMSELVES, and then sit back and wonder:
Where did all the magic go?
Where are the people?
The jobs?
The TAX MONEY we (governments) depend on so damn much to allow the lazy to get all the things to sustain life that others have to WORK and SAVE for? What happened to all that?
Oh boo-frigging-hoo...cry me a freaking RIVER, won'cha?
You bastards chased it ALL away. People get fed up with all of this crap, and those that CAN move...WILL, and far enough away from your "all-reaching" grasps into their pockets, 'cause their MONEY goes with them
Those of us that can't, have to shoulder MORE of this burden.
You want the bridges fixed?
Fine, HERE is how you (the city and county) do it:
GET ALL THOSE DAMN PRISONERS OUT OF THEIR JAIL CELLS, OUT INTO THAT FRESH AIR AND GET THEM TO FIX AND MAINTAIN THESE BRIDGES!
Hell, it's not like we DON'T have enough "idle hands" incarcerated THESE days, is it?
Reinstitute CHAIN GANGS...
That might be an incentive to NOT commit crime when they are released, don'cha think?
Man, if there is ONE THING I have noticed in my nearly TWELVE (long) years living in THIS city, it's that the powers that be want SO damn hard to turn it into a MAJOR METROPOLITAN AREA.
All well and good, BUT...you have to also be ready for ALL the problems that entails as well.
So far, this city hasn't been paying too much attention to that.
That's why you have the level of crime you do.
That's why rentals abound and neighborhoods turn into urban cesspools full of human flotsam. rising like a tide to envelope more neighborhoods yearly..
That's why people from OTHER cities come here...for the "free money" (via the welfare system). It would behoove this city to start taking a look around at ALL the "free labor" you have available, and that must include ALL these young bucks on the SOUTH side of town, that have nothing to do ALL damn day (every day) but nothing at all. Now I know the NAACP and the ACLU would be all over (tell 'em to pound sand) this like white on rice, but facts are facts.
You find a way to get these men OF the streets, and into gainful employment, and that WILL make a difference. You TEACH them, SHOW them how to make an HONEST living, and become contributing members of this city's populace, and you WILL effect change.
But as long as this city, county, state and federal government sit back and keep handing out money that is worth less this week than the last, there will be NO incentive to better ANY community.
The hard-working, tax-paying people can only do SO much, before you not only exhaust their ability to dump their money into some governmental black hole, but actually dissuade them from remaining IN your city, county, or state. Time to make EVERYONE that is capable of pulling their OWN weight...do so.
You cannot field an army with only a platoon,of warriors carrying rifles and attacking vastly superior forces.
Neither can you create a police force to protect hundreds of thousands with a mere handful of people in a few patrol vehicles.
You draw from ALL the community.
Everyone pitches in, or no one will be left TO pitch in.
Reminds me of the old saying:
"Security must be fore everyone, or no one is secure."
Same goes for footing the bill.,
It's time to stop going to the same "well" when it comes to who pays for what.
Sooner or later...that well WILL dry up, whether by attrition through old age, moving away, crime, or whatever reason you can imagine.
A city should be run as a business, which makes all of us the "employees", and the LAST thing a business should do, in order to remain viable and competitive, is to PISS OFF it's employees.
That's a sure way to see any company fold.
Take a look at DETROIT, and tell that this is NOT exactly what has happened there. That could well be OUR future here.
We are in this mess together, and it's together than we can oft times accomplish what would have seemed impossible before.
We can make OUR voices heard, hold the governments accountable to US, and even vote all of them the hell OUT of the offices they hold.
Or...we can do nothing but shake our heads,, and turn that page, or change that channel.
There are better ways to manage than by busting the humps of the people that make up a city.
They (we) have enough on THEIR Plates as it is.
And to think, we're halfway to the weekend.
Will we survive until Friday?
We can but hope, my friends.
Stay safe out there, America.