I Don't Want Your Tax Dollars !

I recently learned that the lady who owned the farm Melissa and I bought some months ago was basically getting a cheque from the USDA NOT to grow corn and soybeans. It wasn't the kind of cheque that you run and buy a new Porche on, but it wasn't chicken feed, either. I know this because I got a letter in the mail recently asking me, as the new property owner, where I would like this year's cheque sent, which is just unbelieveable to me. I wrote back and asking not to be signed up as a part of this program and to please cancel my current cheque because I wasn't going to accept it.

At the root of it, seemingly easy money makes me feel pretty uneasy. Call it an old fashioned notion if you want, but I don't much enjoy feeling beholden to anyone, although like everyone alive, I know that I AM beholden to some folks for various reasons. I also don't really trust that which I don't fully understand, and I don't understand why the government would want to pay folks for not farming land in a way they see fit to do. At the end of the day, I'm not sure whether it's the first step in a power grab, a vote getter, or something else entirely, but I do know that said cheque probably wasn't issued from the good of the government's heart.

As a new American, I honestly don't care all that much about party affiliations. As far as I'm concerned, the man most likely to get my vote next election day will be the one explaining how he's going to ELIMINATE some of the hugely wasteful and unneccesary programs that already exist. In my books, this would include the one that was going to send Melissa and I an unwanted and poorly disguised government welfare cheque to not do something that I was never going to do anyway. As far as I'm concerned, if they can't save it, they ought to give the money they didn't spend on me to the old people, or veterans, or some other group that actually deserves it.

If they REALLY want to help me out, maybe they could take the money and form a task force that could help answer why as small business owners our health insurance premium is the largest single line expense we pay every month and also why it went up by 15 % last year despite no significant claims from either of us.

Stepping down off my soapbox now. :)