Living is Easy With Eyes Closed

It's 15 degrees Fahrenheit this morning with a zero degree windchill! Probably the coldest feeling day of the winter so far. In the nation's capital that can only mean one thing. Frozen water pipes. Burst water mains. Icy streets. Blocked traffic. Rerouting onto other roads. And more gridlock.

A good symbol of our nation's infrastructure overall. Old. Breaking down. In huge need of repair and reconstruction. It all started with the Great Communicator. Ronald Reagan. He greatly communicated us into believing that less government means less spending means more money for us. Great message. It fed right into our need for security. Our need for more and bigger.

Except he failed to communicate that while we were biggering ourselves, we were spending less on the kinds of things that our children would need someday. That we were taking home repair money (and by "home" here I mean our nation's house), and spending it for fun things today. Bigger cars. Bigger TVs. Bigger vacations. Bigger houses. Bigger wars. Bigger toys. Bigger stomachs. And Reagan's plan didn't work anyway. We got a bigger government along the way as well.

In the meantime our children's debt has grown. Fiscally and structurally. We get collapsing bridges and deteriorating roads. Inadequate water and sewerage treatment. Insufficient park upkeep and maintenance. Falling power lines and failing schools. And bursting water mains just blocks from the White House. Within eyesight of the Capital Building. If only they would shut their mouths and open their eyes once in awhile. They might see. See that bigger is rarely better. That enough is always plenty. And that we should leave enough for the future, too.