Paying the bills

By Dan Barber

Do you enjoy living in your home or apartment? Do you enjoy the food you eat? Do you appreciate the good service you receive from customer service workers like restaurant employees, hair dressers, barbers and others too numerous to list? Do you enjoy the benefits of living in the United States? Do you have the freedom to be an atheist or worship in any church, synagogue or coven?

If you answered yes to any of the above questions or a myriad of other benefits or services you enjoy, then you have a bill to pay.

If you are living in a nice home or apartment then you have to pay a mortgage or rent, property taxes, insurance and maintenance either directly or through a landlord, utilities also have to be paid to keep the power and water on and to stay warm. If you are fortunate enough to have cable television, internet and telephone service then you have to pay for it. Those who live in public housing or require government assistance in anyway, through no fault of their own, also have a bill to pay.

Even those who choose to break the law as a shortcut to obtain any of the finer or even necessary things in life are paying the bill by being incarcerated in a jail or prison. But they no longer have to worry about when to take a shower, when to turn out the lights at night, when to go to bed, when to wake up in the mornings or even what is prepared for their meals. They are also relieved of the choice of what fashion or color to wear. These people are at least afforded the ability to live in a “smoke free” environment and given plenty of time to exercise and given employment in the prison industry as a reward for good behavior.

Unless you live in a vacuum the food you eat has to be home grown or bought in a grocery store. This store bought food has to be cultivated, inspected and shipped to the stores. Our government is involved in every aspect of that process before you prepare it for breakfast. Personally, based on my own experience, I would rather eat an egg that came in a government inspected clean container that I bought from my local store then one that I collected from underneath a chicken that I had to wash the chicken poop from before cooking it. The government regulates and inspects farms, food processing, stores, and for the most part, maintains the safe lanes of transport for that food to the distribution centers. The cost for that processing has to be paid for in your grocery bills to cover insurance, taxes and fees. I would venture a guess, based on the shape most Americans are in that they don’t really want to know where their food comes from as long as the grocery store is bright and clean or the food is delivered within 30 minutes for home delivery or 30 seconds in the drive through restaurant.

Restaurants and their employees who provide friendly and efficient service do so because they expect gratitude in the form of gratuities (tips) for that service. They probably also expect friendly and efficient customers… this is a common sense social norm, the quicker a customer selects their food choice and eats then the more money the restaurant and employee will earn; the restaurants customers waiting for seating also appreciate an efficient and friendly environment.

Public employees also provide a service and expect to be compensated appropriately, but in today’s media and political environments public employees are a favorite target to blame for higher taxes the government has to collect to continue paying for stuff the government provides to citizens.

In my opinion the government is now attempting to turn health care workers into public employees by making them dependent upon what the government will allow them to be paid for their service… a back door reward for health insurance companies and their investors. Healthcare and Medical Malpractice insurance companies should be regulated by the government not the services health care workers provide.

A recent development in the blame game for higher taxes falls on a group of people who only make up about one percent of the population of the US… no they aren’t the “one per-centers” who were blamed for the economic woes of our country and targeted for the “occupy Wall Street” movement across the country. They aren’t the poor citizens or undocumented immigrants’ who are dependent upon the government for housing or food assistance in order to survive.

These people being targeted and denied promised compensation can’t complain to their superiors or go to their union bosses for protection because in both cases it’s not allowed by federal law. The people that these “one per-centers” took an oath to obey have ordered further studies to search out ways to continue reducing promised benefits… these “one per-centers” are the men and women of the United States Military. Some of those men and women have been disabled due to their service to the country. Yes, we enjoy an “all volunteer force” but if we run out of volunteers our government will have to reinstate the draft. These current volunteers serve so you don’t have to witness the horrors of the battle field first-hand. A federal holiday and a thank you for your service to these veterans is nice, but promised compensation is a requirement!

I’ve seen Armed Forces advertisement slogans that state “Freedom is not free.” One percent of our population knows that first-hand. If you enjoy your freedom tell your elected leaders to pay the bill that has been promised.