What is freedom?

Like many of you I spent the Fourth of July relaxing and watching fireworks. I did take a moment to meditate on the blessings of our Founding Fathers. Not much later though I was furious again...furious at the disgrace our public leaders have brought to us.

We no longer have statesmen working for the good of our country. We have professional politicians who are working for the big payoff. From the local level where Birmingham City Council and Jefferson County Commission members are having charges brought on a regular basis to our Nation's leaders promoting agendas that will rip this country to pieces.

The city of Birmingham has now legalized Bingo. Of course the permits they are approving belong to friends and relatives. It seems that gambling was a sin only until tax revenues fell below their ever growing needs.

The Jefferson County Commission has continued to spend according to their budget that contained the illegal occupational tax revenue. Their answer to the problem was to cut back hourly employees to four days a week. Salaried employees were exempted because the commission feared paycuts would have been illegal for them. Cutting pennies to save dollars. It never works. Now they did not cut their own pay or that of their assistants.

The problem here is we have a county whose services are larger than what its tax base will provide for. Is there a solution? Of course...smaller government. First, cut the assistants. Let the commission do its own work. Next, cut the perks. Cars, car allowances, cell phones, any service that allows county employees to work from home. Cut the grants. Counties should not be funding nonprofit grants if they cannot pay their own bills. Change the benefits programs. Require all county employees to use County Services for medical care (including the commissioners. Bonus is that they will find a way to improve the service if they are forced to use it). Cut the lobbiests that the county pays for. Basically cut any and all items not necessary to running the county. That should leave only the sheriff's department (judicial falling under this), revenue department and public works. Anything else is a perk so cut it.

Nationally, we are screwed. Sorry if you don't like it but it is the truth. We are skipping easily over socialism and headed straight to communism. Salary caps, government ownership of many industries and nationalized health care. This is insane. Why should we follow in the footsteps of counties who have overtaxed their citizens to the point of removing all initiative? Why are we following energy plans from states that regularly experience rolling blackouts? C'mon people and wake up. We are not victims of THEY. We are Americans. We are born with the opportunity to achieve anything we set our mind too. To trade that for a little comfort or to avoid a hard choice is crazy. Our freedoms are not privilages, they are rights-guaranteed by our framers.