Us against Them

I was having a discussion with a nice senior woman about heart problems and bypass surgery. We old folk do like to discuss ailments. As would be expected the cost of the procedure came up and we discussed the general increase in prices and cost of medical care and we were thankful for Medicare. I of course mentioned that I was in the wrong profession: I should have been a surgeon. She related a story about how one of her grand children was attending college and her costs had gone up considerably and the availability of loans and grants were diminishing. She then remarked that they were not providing the funds for her grandchild. They were not granting loans or giving grants that they were giving the previous year. I remarked that when she talks about them, she means her neighbors and the people across the street. There was a moment of awkward silence and then she remarked: I never looked at it that way.

I always wonder what politicians mean when they say they are going to Washington or Tallahassee or wherever and will fight for ‘you’. Who are they going to fight? The school grants come from the government. The cost of heart bypass surgery comes from the government. It all comes from the government. But where does the government get its money. Why it gets it from us. To be correct, it steals it from us in the form of taxes and then it doles out the taxes to whomever it deems most profitable to the politicians. Profitable means getting reelected. But we pay all the bills. I send my money to them, they take what they need to support their lavish lifestyle and then send the rest to the people who support them. So when the politicians, stumping for election, say they are going to fight for us, they really mean they are going to fight us for more tax money, so they can give more money to themselves and to us.