A Free Ride to Work

In this day of high gas prices, how would you like to have a free ride to work? Well, if you are a federal employee, you can get that free ride by joining a van pool. Yes, folks, those same people who are already being paid with your tax dollars are getting more of them put in their pocket for joining a van pool. Since federal employees can collect up to $240.00 a month to pay their share of the expenses, they ride free while the rest of the van pool members pay their own way.

We have members of Congress who claim they cannot find a single place to cut spending and yet programs like this exist. There is an entire group of people who think it is their right to be paid this expense because they work for the government. I saw one interview in which a woman actually claimed she get paid so much less than a private company employee that she couldn’t afford to go to work without the free ride.

Collecting from the same pot of money twice used to be called double-dipping. Now it’s called an entitlement. Somewhere along the way, the mindset has changed in the federal government and the idea that government employees work for the rest of us has been lost. The funds used to pay for salaries and other items in the budgets have somehow become “government funds” instead of taxpayer dollars.

If we are to correct this attitude, we must start educating everyone about taxes and where the tax money originates. If John Q. Public pays taxes, and Jane Federal Employee gets a pay check, the two are connected. John’s taxes are paying Jane’s salary. If Jane is riding in the van pool and she gets a reimbursement check for her share of the expenses, then more of John’s taxes are needed to give Jane the additional money. This also usually means that John will have to pay more taxes which leaves him less money in his wallet to pay for other things.

Sounds pretty simple doesn’t it. So, why can’t the well-educated Senators and Representatives sitting inside the beltway figure this out? I know in Washington terms, this is a small amount of money. After all, it probably only amounts to a “few million dollars a year.”

My message to the beltway crew is “a penny saved is a penny earned,” a quote from Benjamin Franklin. To update it for the benefit of those in D.C., “a million saved is a million not borrowed.”