Junkie

By POLITICS 24/7 guest blogger Michael Duminiak         All across the country, the people are facing the same problem. Their governments are addicted to spending and now the money has run out. The withdrawal symptoms are setting in and things are looking like they’re going to get much worse. The junkie is asking for just one more fix. The people are wondering if they want to suffer through detox with the junkie or just give in, give another fix and pretend there isn’t a problem.

In New Jersey, the Governor is making the government quit cold turkey. In Pennsylvania, the Governor is working to convince people that supporting the junkie’s habit is better than suffering the side effects of government detox. In California, the Governor is trying a methadone-like approach where the junkie is partially getting a fix, but things are still unpleasant. Nationally, the President is upping the dosage and the government is high as a kite for ‘one last fix’.

Anyone who has known an addict knows how easy it is to give in to the pleas of the addict. It is far easier to just ignore the problem and ignore the money that goes missing than it is to stand up and intervene. We also know that the only way to save the addict from ultimate destruction and ourselves as well is to intervene. It is often painful for all involved. However, it is necessary and does finally solve the problem.

The first step to helping junkies is to cut off the supply of the thing to which they are addicted. Then you have to stand firm while accepting the backlash. Here in Pennsylvania, we need to tell the government no to raising taxes or fees or tolls and then be willing to suffer the government’s attempts to break our resolve by shutting down road projects and cutting education spending. The government knows that those are the things that matter to us and if it hurts us in those areas, we might cave in and give more money. But, we need to stand strong and suffer the consequences until the government is forced to face its problem and straighten up.

Right now, government generally won’t admit it has a problem. So, it isn’t going to help itself. It is just going to continue to slide deeper into addiction until it destroys itself and us with it. We need to stage an intervention. We need to force it to see its addiction. We need to save it from itself. The government is our child. We gave it the money that fed its addiction. We saw all the signs of trouble and we ignored them. We let it have more money to continue the addiction. We had our ‘methadone moment’ in the 90’s when we reduced the addiction for a short time, but then we caved and let the government spiral back downward. We enabled it. We made excuses for it. We justified it. We deluded ourselves into thinking it was just a momentary relapse. It isn’t. We all know that.

So what do you choose to do: support the junkie’s habit so that your life can be tranquil or stage an intervention and be willing to suffer for awhile as the junkie crashes? We all know that the junkie will either destroy itself or we will have to intervene. So the real question is, do we love the junkie enough to save it from destruction and do we have the courage to stand by the junkie’s side and suffer as well during withdrawal?

Michael Duminiak

Michael Duminiak is a strict constructionist Republican residing in central Pennsylvania. He attended the Pennsylvania State University graduating as a member of the Psi Chi national honor society. He currently works as a consultant for an international engineering firm working primarily on government related projects. He is an active member of his community involved in multiple local organizations and serving as a Fire Police Officer. He recently won the Republican primary for Mayor of Port Matilda, PA.