THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, December 17, 1995 TAG: 9512140181
SECTION: CAROLINA COAST PAGE: 06 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
SOURCE: Ronald L. Speer
LENGTH: Medium: 76 lines
As you know, I don't usually write much about the goings-on in Congress.
There are lots of reasons, but mostly I shy away from keeping folks posted on our federal legislators because way too much already is written or telecast about them.
Why, if an alien landed anywhere in the U.S. of A. and read the papers or watched TV he'd know that the most important man in the world was Newt Gingrich.
I don't want to be a part of those misconceptions. Besides, humorist Will Rogers summed it up best 60 years ago: ``All politics is applesauce.'' (He really did say applesauce. That's how nice a fellow he was. Never met an important man he didn't like, he always said.)
As far as important people go, federal lawmakers aren't high on my list of people to write about.
But today I'm going to break my silence about the feds in Washington.
The reason is that I'm more than a tad upset with America's lawmakers who don't think most of us can add, let alone read and write. I resent that, although I admit that when it comes to politics, I'm just a country boy trying to learn. But I ain't all that stupid. Neither are the folks in the rest of the country.
Last week, in the childish battle the Republicans are having with the Democrats about the balanced budget and shutting down federal offices and the like, they all showed how gullible they thought their constituents are when they announced:
``Not to worry, we've found 135 billion dollars, and all our problems are over!''
Shades of the late Ev Dirksen, the homespun Illinois senator who once said, ``A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you're talking about real money.''
Think of it - 135 billion dollars, just lying around, so to speak.
Seems that our tax collectors had underfigured an increase in corporate income taxes. That's a pretty hefty mistake to ask beleaguered taxpayers to swallow.
If 135 BILLION can get lost in the political shuffle, think how easy it must be to misplace a few measly millions.
And for most of us, a MILLION here, a MILLION there is real money. We can't even think in billions, us non-congressional types.
But a little arithmetic shows that 135 billion dollars would pay $40,000-a-year salaries for about 340,000 teachers or cops for 10 years.
That kind of money would be enough to purchase maybe 1,000 big-league baseball or football teams.
And 135 billion dollars would build 1.35 million new $100,000 homes, one for almost every family in North Carolina.
That is a lot of houses, my friends. And 135 billion is a lot of bucks.
Only in Congress is that kind of money mentioned in an ``Oh, by-the-way'' tone. Just a few years ago when hundreds of billions of dollars were stolen by political cronies running savings and loan scams, Congress sort of said ``ain't it a shame'' and forgot about it.
Casual treatment of taxpayers' money has been criticized for centuries, of course.
Mark Twain wrote a hundred years ago, ``It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly native America criminal class except Congress.''
Personally, I think Mr. Twain was a little harsh.
But it is pretty hard to believe Congress will ever solve our money problems when our federal lawmakers treat 135 billion dollars like it was pocket change that had been forgotten.
It is difficult to drum up much support for the feds when they go on tirades about the money wasted on welfare mothers.
And if a 135 billion dollar error is a ho-hum mistake, it sure makes me wonder whether anybody really knows how much the IRS takes in - and who takes how much out. by CNB