In Newfoundland you may call this a rant ....

It is Presidents Day here in not so sunny Northern Virginia. Of course that does not stop me from relaxing in the den reading the paper and enjoying my coffee. I enjoy reading because it gives me the opportunity to see people's different views of things and this morning I saw a view on personal responsibility.

The headline Montgomery homeowner learns back yard is a no-mow zone. The issue is that the homeowner did not know that there was an easement on his property that required him to leave the specific area "natural". Why did he not know this? It is, by his own admission, in the contract under which he bought the house. He stated that in the flurry of paperwork he signed the specific paragraph without reading or inquiring about it.

So how is this news? What I find interesting about this story is the element of the bigger picture. Had this homeowner taken an extra 30 minutes to read what he was signing and ask questions he certainly could have known about this and made the decision to buy and live with it or not to buy.

On the bigger scale - in today's environment of fiscal conservatism I believe we will see a lot of this, let me be blunt, "Oh shit!" moments in the coming weeks, months and years people looking near term and then some time later realizing that more thought was needed. For example - the real possibility that the Federal Government shuts down means unemployment benefits, social security, medicare, visas, etc do not get processed. How will the citizenry feel about this and are the new republicans ready for that? If the plans for budget cuts to border control and EPA go ahead how will the citizenry feel about long lines at the border, less protection at the border when immigration concerns have been top shelf items, or increased cost of goods because it is more expensive to import? What about impacts on the environment? If the EPA is not able to do it's job are we to expect big company CEOs are going to continue to invest in clean technologies or would they rather short cut the process and give a fraction of that money to a political action committee so that more cuts to such programs can happen?

There are lots of very tough questions that need to be answered but I hope that the US public will ask the questions while looking at the big picture and make sure that their representatives look at the effect of their decisions 10 to 20 years down the road and not just looking at how they get a checkmark for the next time they face the people in the polls.


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Location:Legacy Park Dr,Ashburn,United States