2020

Happy New Year.

The Sisyphus Project is copyrighted 2020 as well as all the previous years.

January 1 is the time a lot of newly elected local officials take office.  Our town’s supervisor was on TV this morning saying he had saved the taxpayers a million dollars, by cutting positions from the budget in the supervisor’s office.  Then he went on to say he’ll spend that money on other things that need doing.

I have two comments on this.  First, if he’s spending the money elsewhere, he isn’t saving it, is he?  Second, I am someone who has crafted multi-million-dollar government budgets, and everyone who works in the supervisor’s office might be paid out of the supervisor’s budget.  I don’t know in this specific case.  However, it’s kind of normal for a municipal executive to have at least some people working in his/her office who are paid from the budget in other departments.

Something else that takes place at the beginning of every year is the cable tv channel HGTV’s dream home.  I always watch and like the show they do about building or extensively remodeling a dream home.  But the prize in the contest is the house with all its furnishings, a new Honda Passport, and $250,000 from Quicken Mortgage, for a total of over two-million dollars.  That’s great, but don’t you have to be rich in order to pay the taxes so you can keep the prize once you’ve won?  My family is comfortable, but certainly not rich, and I know I couldn’t afford to keep that prize unless I won Powerball or Mega Millions first.

By the way, if I do win Powerball or Mega Millions this year, my plans for that haven’t changed.  I still intend to jump on the bed.

Author: Tom

I know by ABC's, I can write my name, and I can count to 100.