Waste Not . . . Want Not

I come from a fairly frugal family, at least on my Dad's side. Oh don't get me wrong, we all have way more than we need. Through my childhood, I truly thought my mother was a marathon shopper, and shopping would kill me. My grandparents always seemed to be able to afford what they wanted, but their wants were fairly simple. I don't know that frugal is actually the proper term, but since that's not really my point, I'll simply move along. I think my perspective and the way my dad and his folks handled money would be of great value to our Congress, even now. As I read how much they tell us they are going to cut and save, I read other things that tells me, they have no clue how to handle money, especially when it isn't theirs. Well, considering how much their salaries are, and how many things we taxpayers have to provide for them, it sounds like they can't manage their own money either. So, I could help even more. As they talk about trimming the budget, yet we all know they get a raise even in the midst of a troubled economy. Oh there was the one superficial gesture after the Democrats regained the House in 2006, but Congress isn't living like we are and that is becoming more evident all the time. I read an interesting article today that I am going to discuss even on my show tonight. It seems Congress spends nearly $1M on bottle water, annually. I, personally, cannot understand how they could possibly do that, no more time than they are in Washington, but the figure rang in over $850,000. Broken down, this averaged about $2000 per person and they're only there what 200 days a year. Are there no water fountains on the Hill? I would have thought they could all manage to have some sort of little fridge in their office to bring their own, and if not; put in vending machines. Do they really think everything in life is provided at the job site? How many people have beverages furnished, besides coffee, or the water fountain, at no charge at work? And many places there is a "pot" to take up collection for the coffee. Only tap water is furnished in most places of employment, in this country. Now the plot thickens here because Nestle has a contract for providing their bottled water and wouldn't we all love to know the cost per case on that deal! First this infuriates me in that Congress is just so elitist in their attitude that they can tell us how concerned they are about 'we the people' and waste like they do. How many little kids could have warm meals or new clothes for just what Congress wastes on bottled water? What about the landfill on that kind of sumptuousness? Why can't the Nestle lobbyist provide the water as one of their donations? But even on a more basic level, this tells me we have people in office that have no idea that there is a bottom line. We have people so out of touch with the reality of the State of our Union that there is absolutely no hope of this particular crowd even chipping away at the outrageous spending, much less to ever balance the budget. I propose two things here. Send a note to your representative and inform them that if we tax payers could afford that sort of expense for water, we'd be giving it to our kids before we'd provide it to old politicians. The second thing I'm going to do is boycott Nestle products until I see some improvement. Congress and Nestle, if you're not part of the solution, you are part of the problem. Please, Congress, stop proving you are only there for your own interests and not representing "we the people."
We have drunken our water for money . . . Prophecy of Holy Scripture