OPINION: Washington reminds me of slopping hogs

You see, every country kitchen had a slop bucket sitting next to the old wood-burning stove in the kitchen. Every bit of waste from the kitchen went in that bucket. Turnip peels, apple cores, leftovers from the table, even the water used to wash the dishes. All of that and more went in the slop bucket.

Every day the contents of the slop bucket, augmented with stuff from the corn crib, was fed to the pigs. There was a long “V” shaped trough in the pig pen where all this stuff was dumped. The pigs would come running. Within minutes the trough would be full of snorting, snarling, rooting, arguring pigs each intent on getting the biggest share.

It was a sight to see. All those pigs nose deep in that trough, with their wiggling behinds sticking up in the air as they tried to shove each other aside looking for the best nuggets in the slop. Kind of reminds me of Washington D.C. politicians. Only difference is that instead of rooting for roots and corn cobs from our dinner table, they are rooting for buckets of money from our pockets!

When Congress presented a bill to help the people so badly injured by Tropical Storm Sandy in the Northeast, they immediately started dumping buckets of money into the trough and the pigs came running. They put in money for everything from fish in Alaska to NASCAR. No wonder they call it “pork.” The few Republicans who blocked that slop bucket and insisted on a clean bill were right. I applaud them.

Millions of Americans are on a very tight budget. We make just enough money to pay for our daily bread. We certainly don’t have any extra to add to the Congressional slop bucket. Yet that is exactly what they are demanding.

If you think your income was low enough for you to be immune to the recent tax boost, just take a look at your paycheck. Everybody who gets a check for their labor has been hit. Even if you did not get a boost in your income tax deductions, you got hit with a boost in your social security “contribution” of two percent. That is $2 on every hundred taken right out of your wallet and paid into the federal treasury.

And heaven help you if you had any investments. You know, as in retirement savings. Government is taking a bigger cut of your interest income. That’s right. Even your corn crib is in danger from the government porkers.

It is a shame that we cannot have the fruits of our labor without having to feed so much of it to the porkers. We deserve better than that.

Frank Gillispie is founder of The Madison County Journal. His e-mail address is frank@frankgillispie.com. His website can be accessed at http://www.frankgillispie.com/gillispieonline.