Damn Yankees

What will you sell your vote for? How many of you will go to the voting booths in the next general election and vote your straight Republican ticket again? When will you wake up and smell the coffee? I know what it is, they, the Republicans keep a secret stash of liquor and on election day with the correct password and counter sign you can enter their secret spot. There in hiding you can drink you fill so that you can then vote for them under the influence of diminished cognitive ability. Thereby relieving yourself of any sense of responsibility for your vote and that accompanying feeling of hypocrisy.

Governor Jon Huntsman Jr. does not veto Energy Solutions’ bill to do away with local and state over sight responsibility for nuclear waste deposal in the state. He lets it become law without his signature to “show his disapproval of the law” according to his spokesman. What is he saying to the seventy percent of you who did not want this bill to pass? Did he listen to the 1,000 telephone calls against the bill or the five favorable calls he received, according to local television news coverage? Who did he represent? Not me, but then I didn’t vote for him in the first place.

Seventy percent of us did not want to spend taxpayer dollars on Real Salt Lake. They decide to spend $35 million on the project anyway. Did they represent you, the average constituent or special big money interests? Who gave them the most campaign contributions?

The Republican dominated legislature passed a tax cut. Your state income tax liability will decrease approximately two hundred dollars. If you buy a $20,000 car your sales tax on the purchase will decrease twenty dollars. The lowering of the sales tax rate on food will save you about seventy-eight dollars. These figures all brought to you from local television news coverage. I do the math and for about three hundred dollars they bought your vote. Oh, I forgot, they threw in a little self-righteousness and throttled the Gay Straight Alliances in our high schools.

By the by, how large was your health insurance premium increase this year? How much more money did you spent on prescription drugs? How many gallons of gas did you buy at the inflated price of an extra dollar per gallon so big oil could make record profits this year. What was your personal portion of the federal deficit this year? Remember each and every member of your family gets to pay that one, even the newest baby. I do the math for an average Utah family of five with two vehicles and come up with about $10,000.

Which way does that scale weighing $300 less on one side or $10,000 more on the other tip? In Damn Yankees the tragic lead character at least got to keep the Yankees out of the World Series in exchange for his soul.