Historical November 1992 article. Dates, prices, services and contacts describe the source period; current availability has not been established.
As I write this, past the deadline as usual, Daylight Savings Time has just kicked in. I’ve spent the past couple of hours changing the clocks. Fortunately, most of my clocks aren’t working so they don’t need changing. Like some people I know, many of my clocks are decorative, not functional. Moving the clocks back an hour really requires moving them forward by eleven hours.
The clocks that chime on the quarterhour are the toughest.
It seems to take forever because while moving the hands forward you have to stop each fifteen minutes to wait for the chimes.
I haven’t heard so many gongs since I listened to Congress on C-SPAN. Creating Daylight Savings Time is one of the few good things that our government has done. By “good,” I mean worthwhile without any cost. Think about that.
When is the last time something beneficial took place that didn’t require a tax increase?
I always wonder why we don’t have Daylight Savings Time all year round. Someone once told me that the farmers didn’t like it, but, heck, everything I read tells me that there are fewer farmers than there used to be, and the latters, I mean farmers, I know would ignore it anyway. Thinking about Daylight Savings Time causes me to think about other things that our government could do to help us. Oh sure, there are many things that it could do, which it needs to do, which would cost mega-bucks: addressing the needs of the cities and solving the educational crisis for starters. And then there are other needs which PURPORTEDLY would even save money, like fixing our healthcare system. (But I ask you, does anyone seriously think that the government can come out of this spending less money? Seriously? Maybe, just maybe, the government will spend less.
If that happens though, guess who’s going to spend more. Yep, the writer and reader of this article times 250 million others.) But back to my point, things that would help that wouldn’t cost! Gosh it’s easy to get distracted. Say, look at that painter out the window! Whoops. I’m suggesting that there are many things which government could do to make life a little more comfortable and wouldn’t cost any money. Just like Daylight Savings Time. By now you’re probably thinking, is Hawkeye Hoerr writing this article or is it really Ross Perot? Yes, I realize that this is a rather conservative approach from one who still treasures his McGovern buttons, but that’s OK. Dad was right: My politics are changing as I’m getting older. So here goes, as David Letterman would say, “Here are the five things that wouldn’t cost anything that the government could do to make our life easier”:
1 Let us vote by mail. We’d even be willing to pay for the stamps.
This would avoid lots of time standing in line. And get this, it might even SAVE MONEY! Fewer walk-in voters could even “reduce the number of alert patronage workers who are paid to sit at the table and ask your name, and ask it again, as you vote. (“Alert patronage workers”; now there’s an oxymoron!)
2 Eliminate pennies. Pennies used to be worth something, one cent I believe. Now, though, with everything costing more and people using less cash in general, who needs them? Many restaurants even have cups with pennies free for the taking!
We should eliminate pennies and round everything up or down to the nearest nickel.
3 Scrap the North American Free Trade Agreement.
I know that economists maintain that in a perfect world there should be no tariffs anywhere. And in a perfect world there should be no crime and no overweight people. But, hey, guess what, it’s not a perfect world! Our American workers will be competing with folks who work for a fraction of our salaries, and often without health care benefits. There’s no way that this won’t result in manufacturing jobs leaving the country. Who thought up this turkey, Walking Joe Teasdale?
4 Force us to use alternatives to the auto. How about letting cars drive on the streets only on the days which correspond to the last digit on the car’s licence plate: cars with plates ending in even-numbered digits could be driven on even-numbered days, etc. Yes, this would be a pain and inconvenience for everyone, but we need to do it. Mass-transit would get a boost, folks would have to carpool, bike, or walk to work. Pollution would drop, we’d be less dependent on foreign fossil fuels, people would save money, and we’d be able to stop building all of those goofy highway interchanges and exit routes to suburbia. No, this step wouldn’t be easier in the shortterm, but over time there’s no question that it would help all of us.
5. Outlaw junk mail. Or at least raise the rates on it enough so that it wouldn’t be used as often. Heavens knows how many fewer postal workers we’d need with this reduction in mail, so that could even save some money.
But the more important point is how much nicer life would be for all of us if we didn’t have to sift through the chaff each night as we went through the mail.
I counted last week and over a six-day period I received THIRTY-SEVEN pieces of junk mail! And that doesn’t even count the political propaganda. So there it is.
The definitive list of cost-free government cures.
All we need are some politicians who have the courage to talk about these kinds of things.
After that, maybe we’ll get some politicians with the courage to talk about government responsibilities which do, in fact, call for increased taxes. Our needs aren’t diminishing, that’s for sure. And by the time I write my next column we’ll be facing the specter of President Bush II, President Clinton, or President Perot.
The good news is that things can’t get any worse.
Originally published in The Times of Skinker-DeBaliviere, November 1992.
Read this article in the original newspaper issue.
Original source: SD_Times1992_11.pdf, printed page(s) 8; PDF page(s) 8.
