The Radical's Blog: The Silly Season Has Begun

As if going to Council wasn't entertaining enough, now it appears our hallowed state Legislature has decided the official silly season has started. Apparently their minds are so exhausted from dilligently solving our property tax problem they officially decided to jump off the deep end together. Are they kidding me? 

If you have been reading the local papers, you have probably heard our Governor took the state helicopter to attend one of his son's baseball games. In the spirit of full disclosure, like any good "radical" I am a big Chris Christie fan. So much so the Fathead of him I have hanging in my house creeps out my kids and their friends' parents at birthday parties. And as for as the bobbleheads and my autographed Christie bedsheet set ... well you get the idea.  Though I did finally take down the "I <3 Chris Christie -- Ban Wicker" Facebook page.

That said, let me go on the record as saying I "facepalmed" myself when I heard this story.  This was not as bad as when you realize your childhood sports hero was doping all those years but still stung a little. It was closer to when you watch your young son playing soccer and on a breakaway towards the goal, he stops to pick a flower. Seriously Gov? They make these things called cameras so you can watch it later. Thanks to a few good engineers you can now even Skype from a cell phone so you can see it live. As a father of three I get the importance of "being there" during these years for your kids, but really? The chopper?

Which brings me to the silly season. What our Governor did was make a mistake. What the Legislature did was even worse.  How many press releases did they send out yesterday in shock and amazement about this? Really? You guys drank the Kool-Aid too? As if every other Governor before him didn't use it or ignore the speeding and seat belt laws to make photo-op meetings? With all of the problems in our state you are spending time you should be spending on fixing our broken system of laws taking cheap political shots in an election year? Yes, what our Governor did was wrong and a waste of taxpayer money but their wasting taxpayer resources to respond is an even bigger mistake when you add up all of the time for staffers to write and publish the press releases. And, yes, if it were a Democratic governor of course the GOP would do the same whining. Unfortunately stupidity is party-blind.

So let me make a statement of my own: Our system of taxes and ethics laws are a trainwreck and a national disgrace. Our reputation as a do-nothing Legislature whose motto is "no reform bill left undiluted" remains intact. They should be ashamed they are wasting their time and my tax dollars on the silliness instead of enacting reforms such as comphrensive statewide pay-to-play bans as other states have. When they call for the Governor to refund the cost of the helicoper ride, I want them to refund their salaries and their staffers who wrote the press releases. Then get to work on what they should be doing.