The Shadow
We all are waiting on the General Assembly and the governor to come up with a new budget and we all know that the new budget will impact every one of us with higher taxes and less services. What we don’t know at the present time is how much the General Assembly will pass on to the localities as unfunded mandates.
One thing for sure, we know that the local governments can’t stand much more in the way of increases. All four communities, Alleghany County, Bath County, Clifton Forge, Covington and Iron Gate are carrying about as much as they can in debt and unfunded mandates.
Let me mention just a few of the debts that are facing three of the localities.
Clifton Forge owes millions for installing water meters and upgrading their water plant. Plus, in about a year, the town will lose the income from the county for processing county sewerage and in turn will begin paying the county to treat the town’s sewerage at the new regional sewer plant below Iron Gate. Let’s don’t forget the population of Clifton Forge is about 4,000 people and about half are elderly and below the poverty level.
The governor said he was not going to raise taxes but he has added a cost to about every service and no matter how you cut it, if you are paying more for a necessary service, that is a tax increase. The local governments can only cut services and employees so much before it impacts the services that we all have become used to.
Covington will have new schools to pay for, closing the Peters Mountain Landfill in a few years down the line, probably upgrading their water and sewer plant and most of all, the communities are losing population and jobs.
Alleghany County announced that they have an $18 million surplus and to be frank with you, I think that is fine, but it is like I am, just before the first of the month when the bills come rolling in, I have a pretty good bank account, but after paying the monthly bills, it is start all over again for next month. Alleghany County has to upgrade the high school, try to come up with money to keep the school system in balance without the loss of the teachers, come up with money for the sheriff’s office to take care of cuts the governor says have to be made to balance the budget. Let’s don’t forget the cuts in mental health and welfare programs.
I have listed some gloomy prospects that will probably happen to some degree in the next few weeks and months after the budget goes into effect July 1, after the General Assembly session is over. We have one thing going for us here in the United States. In the past we have always risen to the occasion and come out on top and we did what we had to do to make it work, and we will again, but it may take a little longer this time around.
I personally think that we have learned a bad habit of depending on the government for all our needs and I am not so sure that the government can take care of our every need this time around.
While we are out trying to save the world, the world is coming in our back door and buying into our industries and they tell me that if China would call in all the money they have invested in the United States companies, it would bankrupt this country, Now that is scary! Let’s don’t forget Japan, Germany and the other countries that think they have found good buys in this country by buying into our companies and eventually will have control of the companies. Guess where the profit will go? Back to the Fatherland.
Let me give you a case in point, it was announced a few weeks ago that the Bondtex Company in Buena Vista, just as you go into the city from Route 60 on the right, is closing. The company was bought a couple of years ago by a Japanese company and I can’t prove this, but I believe the Japanese firm bought the company for its patents and so there went over a 100 jobs down the drain or should I say down the Maury River.
Remember, we trusted Japan right up to the Sunday morning of December 7, 1941, when they bombed Pearl Harbor, when their ambassador in Washington was telling the country they wanted peace but at that very moment was killing Americans on the attack on Pearl Harbor.
I was not there when they bombed Pearl Harbor, but I was there and in other islands in the South Pacific as a soldier later and I witnessed on a first hand basis some of the work the Japanese soldiers did in the Philippines. I was an 18-year-old soldier at the time, and celebrated my 19th birthday in the Philippines, but this particular morning when I was still 18, we were going through this Philippine cemetery on the island of Luzon, right out of the capital of Manila. The Philippine people were great believers that gold teeth were the fashion if you needed a new tooth.
In this cemetery most of the graves were above ground, sort of like in New Orleans, where the water table is so high and all the graves are above ground. The Philippines is so sandy in spots and the water table is so high, the best place to bury a body is above ground.
The Japanese soldiers knew this and they also knew that the people were fond of their gold teeth. The Japanese soldiers would go down the line and with their rifle butt, knock out the end of the grave box and pull the skull out of it and pull the gold teeth out of the skull and did not even bother to put the skull back in the grave box, but let it drop on the ground. You can imagine how the relatives felt when they finally got to go the cemetery and found a loved one with their skull lying on the ground.
We all have had experiences that we tend to put out of our minds or we would go nuts, as we go through life and this experience with the Philippine cemetery I have told very few people, but for some reason it has stuck in the back of my mind ever since that day over 60 years ago.
I have no hard feeling against the Japanese people. One thing I learned about the Japanese soldier, he thought it was an honor to die for the emperor. I bet you could not find any soldier that thought the same way about Presidents Roosevelt or Truman. We served because our country asked us to serve and we all thought it was our duty to serve. We all had many good friends and neighbors that failed to return from the war.
During World War II, there were over 16 million that served in the military and of that 16 million, only about 10 percent are still living. I guess you would say we are a dying breed. But don’t feel sorry for those of us who served in World War II. Many were like me, only 18 years old, and we probably would not have gotten out of the Alleghany Highlands if we had not been drafted. Most of us got to see the world and through the good grace of God we also returned.
I am out of space, time and coffee, see you next week and remember that Jesus loves you. The darkest hour is only 60 minutes. And you can get through it.
