Editorial

The Zachary City Council recently held an open meeting on the question of a new sewer treatment plant for the city. I missed that meeting, but the second one is on Saturday, March 27 at the library at 10 a.m. I intend to ask two questions: it is my understanding that the current treatment plant in East Baton Rouge Parish has enough capacity to treat Zachary sewerage now and with projected growth for at least 10 years.

It is hard to miss the economic growth in the City of Zachary in the last decade, however many still shun Zachary merchants in favor of driving into Baton Rouge to shop. This is disturbing for multiple reasons.

If eternal vigilance is the price of freedom, incessant distractions are the way that politicians take away our freedoms, in order to enhance their own power and longevity in office. Dire alarms and heady crusades are among the many distractions of our attention from the ever increasing ways that government finds to take away more of our money and more of our freedom.
Magicians have long known that distracting an audience is the key to creating the illusion of magic. It is also the key to political magic.

The Feliciana Animal Welfare Society, “FAWS”, is currently in need of sponsorships for “Project Doggy Gate," a program that provides free spay/neuter/vaccination services to impoverished pet-owners in our parish. The cost per dog will average $100. Sponsorships are greatly needed at this time.

President Obama recently met with the House Republican delegation in a much ballyhooed session in Baltimoreto discuss various issues, including health care. The meeting gave him a temporary bump in public opinion polls. That bump didn't come from any increased popularity regarding the health care legislation he supports (as other polls on health care confirm). Instead, it came from the fact that, at least symbolically, he was trying to be "bipartisan."

According to the Congressional Budget Office, the interest costs alone, on the national debt was over $383 billion in 2009. Put another way, the federal government, just today, incurred another $1 billion in interest costs alone (not including any principal), for money borrowed and spent on government programs. And tomorrow, another $1 billion in interest costs will be incurred. If our nation isn’t printing the dollars, the U.S. is borrowing increasingly from foreign sources. In 2009, the United States owed China $772 billion.