Be careful of what you don't ask for.

A while back, one of our local newspapers printed an editorial concerning citizens' complaints about high taxes, titled "Lower taxes can bring less service", and warned taxpayers to be careful what you ask for, because you might get it. While that might be true, I would suggest that taxpayers be especially careful when asking for something from the government, because you never know what you are going to end up with.

You might reasonably ask your government to take the taxes you pay on gasoline and use them to build and repair our roads. What you end up with is nearly half of that money being spent on flower gardens, hiking trails, bicycle paths, studies on adolescent obesity and thousands of other pork-barrel projects.

You might ask your government to simply educate your children, and instead end up paying for a top-heavy bureaucracy that costs 3 to 4 times more per student than private schools.

You might ask your government for health insurance to protect your poorest senior citizens, and instead end up with a program that spends your tax money to furnish Viagra for the wealthiest segment of our population.

You might ask your government to raise an army to protect you from foreign invaders, and instead end up paying to have troops stationed in 140 countries around the world, providing security for nations quite capable of providing their own
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Sometimes getting what you ask for isn’t nearly as bad as getting what you didn’t ask for.

I think I’m ready to ask for a little less government.