Bugger Them Beggars

Have you heard the one about the Vegas beggar who asks each person passing by for money to feed his family? One woman reaches into her pocket for some cash, but before she hands it over she says, “How do I know you won’t waste this on gambling?”

“Not to worry,” the beggar reassures her. “Gambling money, I’ve already got.”

Of course, this little joke about misplaced priorities has nothing to do with the beggars governing our country in real life.

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Sorry. Failed attempt at sarcasm there. Forget about the beggar, while I tell you about priorities here in my glorious state of Connecticut, currently facing a deficit of nearly $9 billion. So our taxes are going up, on the theory that Connecticut’s budget problems are caused by our having only the third highest tax burden in America. If only we could say “We’re number one!” we wouldn’t have a deficit.

Meanwhile, our state Commission on Culture and Tourism – this is true – paid out grant money so a local university could hire a New Age jazz musician to perform this week as part of some save-the-earth college festival. And the state still gives expensive (and sellable) tax credits to Hollywood types who agree to film movies here. (We might have high taxes here, but by-God we also get to say “I live in the same state where Tom Cruise filmed some scenes in the ‘War of the Worlds’ remake a couple years ago!”)

My own city’s contemplating spending a half-million to replace a clock on the outside of the concrete slab we call City Hall. Maybe you can’t afford a watch, but you can drive downtown and read the time there.

In personal news, I've gone over four weeks without a cigarette, and in addition to the money the federal government isn't getting, the state has already lost about $56 they’d been counting on to get from me this year. Ha ha ha.

Ha ha.