Money doesn’t talk, it swears

Opinion

February 16, 2008

By Stoney Harcastle The McAlester News-Capital Sat Feb 16, 2008, 02:33 PM CST

Our congress and president are getting ready to fight over a $3 trillion budget. These big figures are mind boggling. Just how much is a trillion?

It is one followed by 12 zeros, (1,000,000,000,000), or a million times one million, or a thousand times a billion and is too big for many calculators to handle. If some lucky person was given a trillion dollars, it would take them a million years to blow it. But our government can do it in less than a year.

Growing up during the Great Depression, my mind fails to register all these big money figures that are being thrown around today. Back then we counted our pennies, if we had any. Millionaires were the Rockefellers and Vanderbilts. Today, millionaires are small fish in a big pond. One must be a billionaire to be invited to the President’s Ball.

We thought that after the presidential primaries, television politicking and advertising would slow down. Wrong. We are still being flooded with ads and analysts telling us who is going to win, why and how.

This is a thought: It appears John McCain has a lock as the Republican presidential candidate. The Republican conservative right wing doesn’t seem satisfied with McCain. If this is the case, then they should draft Dick Cheney. He is a compassionate, conservative and staunch supporter of President Bush’s policies — war and making the rich richer. If elected, Cheney no doubt would fire all government employees and, with a no-bid contract, hire Haliburton to run our government.

Our Oklahoma legislature is noted for passing some weird bills, but it is doubtful even they can top this one. A Mississippi lawmaker has introduced a bill that would make it illegal for restaurants to serve obese customers. Imagine a poor waitress having to tell a customer, “I can’t take your order — you are too fat. Don’t argue, it’s the law.” Maybe this would work better than Weight Watchers to slim them down.

A highway patrolman friend passed this along. He wrote a teenager a speeding ticket. The teenager looked at the ticket and said, “If I had known it would cost this much, I wouldn’t have done it.”

Remember: It is not wrong to ask questions. It is wrong if we don’t.

Stoney Hardcastle is an educator, author and commentator on all thinks Oklahoman.

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