While I don’t know how often, or with how much interest, you keep track of the various legislative bodies that affect your life, I try to keep up ‘somewhat.’

I mean our Democratic Republic demands a lot. We have the federal, the state, the county, the city or village, the local school board; in Nebraska, the NRD and/or electric boards, the state education board or community college making decisions all the time that affect what and how we live our lives.

In Nebraska it seems that, in general, we elect people to these positions and trust they will do the best they can . . . and that will be what we want.

The state of Nebraska has about three months to do its business this year. As part of their process, they send out a weekly report called the “Unicameral Update.” I have to admit I don’t read everything in it, but I do look it over from time to time.

The most recent issue had a couple of items I found interesting, besides the property tax relief I mean.

In Nebraska, grocery or food items are exempt from sales taxes. Well, this year a senator from Omaha brought forth a proposal to include babies’ diapers in the category of items exempt. Then, a proposal to exempt twine used for ag purposes from sales tax also came up. They thought that since the net wrap used to bale hay was exempted a year ago, twine should also be exempt.

These are just two proposals to change a Nebraska law among the many, many other ideas. And . . . of course, they are still trying to repeal the helmet law for certain motorcyclists.

All items like these are important for a fair and honest society, but the ordinary citizen sometimes just doesn’t have the time to keep up with all the proposals that come up. If legislators read the desires of the people they represent correctly, the system works. However, at times a person has to wonder if we are not spending a lot of money to legislate things that maybe could be taken care of in other ways.

For example, last week our federal government made a big thing out of the hassle people had to get tickets for a music concert. I admit I know little about what all happened, but to have the most expensive body of legislators in the nation spending an inordinate amount of time figuring out how people buy music concert tickets seems inappropriate to me. I suspect over time the economic system would have solved the problem. Yes, there would have been some suffering along the way, but the system would have eventually solved the problem.

Then again, back to Nebraska. Have you noticed the wide variety of license plates on our Nebraska cars?

That may change soon. A new specialty license plate celebrating Czech heritage is being considered by the Unicameral. Good use of our legislature’s time? ? ? You decide.

Then again, the Unicameral gave the state board of education so much authority the education board decided that it was a good thing to promote the idea that there are more than two genders in our human race.

How can a person “teach” something so wrong ? ? ?

Legislative Democracy . . . it’s not an easy way to govern ourselves. But . . . it is among the best the world has ever come up with.

Watchfulness is required by all of us. This along with patience and prayer.

A O

We are now well into the third year of our present Democratic administration of our federal government. For some time now, I’ve been reading in various publication the “worse” situations our government has put us (the taxpayer) in. Some articles have numbered them from worse to least worse. I have not, however, seen many articles that list the “good” things this administration have done.

I don’t have a list from one to ten (or whatever number you want to stop at), but here are a few things I hope the general public keeps in mind as we approach the next election in 2024.

• The first item I usually think of when I think of our current Democratic administration is that the Democratic Party in general and our current president in particular don’t consider the killing of pre-born babies via abortions as wrong. Cultures and civilizations for thousands of years have considered abortion as “wrong,” but our president sees it as something to be allowed.

• Immigration: The basic concept of any “nation” is that they have defined borders. For the last two years, our southern border has been nonexistent. The U. S. has always been benevolent to people living outside the U. S. when they wished to live here, but they have never just eliminated a border like they have for the last two years.

• Spending – Debt – Inflation: These three items could all be separated, but they all sort of go together. Seems like the spending and debt subjects have been ignored by many people for many years, but sooner, or later, we have to face the problems we try to ignore with printing and borrowing money the government does not have.

• The second last item I’ll list here is the scandal caused by the president’ son. Financial deals made with foreign governments that have seemed to enrich the president and his son with millions and millions of dollars. The worst part is that so many people are now convinced there are two levels of behavior allowed these days. One for most of us and one for those with the power and money to do what they want. Remember all the immoral and illegal actions of Bill and Hillary Clinton? It was not a coincidence that many in the economic world attempted illegal activities after he left office. Remember the ENRON financial problem? If the president, and his family, can do whatever they want, why can’t we also do it?

• One of the most insidious things our current president has done is to make our Legislative Body useless. Most all presidents have made use of “Executive Orders” and I admit at times they are necessary. However, it seems that our current president has used them to get around the Legislative process to get done what he wants to do. We have three branches of our federal government but it seems the Legislative part of our government is often made meaningless by Executive Orders by the president, or by judicial decisions by the Supreme Court.

A O

Watchfulness is the duty of the citizen. Even well-meaning people we elect end up doing things wrong. I will try to do better. I hope you do as well.

A O