Thank God I am Too Old to Care

Back up in the NW rain country for a few months. Sold our home in the Seattle area as it was sucking money out of our retirement savings and have moved into a great, bank owned condo we picked up at a fraction of its original price. One break in a horrible Real Estate market.


However, every day when I read the paper, I want to reach for a valium. Today, the article of interest was Washington State’s program of giving a driver’s license to anyone who could walk up to the counter and ask for one in any of the world’s many languages. No proof of citizenship or residency or literacy or even proof of birth.


Someone finally noticed that there were more licenses given out than we have citizens. There has been a travel program, a fly/drive through system that has allowed illegal aliens from everywhere to come into Washington for a few days, pick up a driver’s license and head to their desired state where the ID will help get them a job, an apartment, welfare, even a SS # and a bank account.


I personally watched a man who spoke no a word of English give the clerk an old, expired driver’s license from Guatemala and stand there until she handed him a valid Washington State license. No written or driving test, like the actual citizens sitting there waiting their turns to take the tests. She said, in an aside to several astonished citizens who questioned her actions, that she had to do it because she spoke no Spanish.


They really know how to fix things up here. The Seattle mayor, concerned that the lack of business sales taxes have hurt the City finances is fixing it by raising the city .parking rates to $4.00/hr.


Of course, that will just drive the buyers to the malls where parking is free on land the city does not own and the city center businesses who have already lost half their sales will continue to shut their doors. Pretty soon we will be paying $20.00 an hour to shop at the three stores left in the city.


The other day, the great thinkers announced that because they can’t manage the metro bus lines efficiently, we will be charged a new $40.00 fee when we renew our auto plates to pick up the slack.


The Citizens had voted in a measure that prohibits the State from adding taxes without voter approval, so they just add fees. In King County we now even have a special fee we must pay to get an official permit to bury our dead. Of course, with their usual efficiency, it could take weeks getting the needed permit. Bodies are backing up in funeral homes.


Another gang of thieves is adding another $30.00 fee to help their special deficits and now we are going to be paying around $5.00 per car to drive across the lake on a bridge we already paid for through tolls. This will send all the cars to the only other bridge or around the lake on already clogged roads. It should add an easy hour of commute time to and from the East side and down town Seattle. That is each way…


I begged my wife to let me go back to the Coachella valley and let me sit in the sun, watching the golfers go by. This economy is turning our politicians into crazy people who have an answer to every one of their failures. Take the money from the citizens while they still have a little left.


When we planned for our retirement, we made sure we had enough to last us until we die. We still do. We just have to die ten years sooner..