OPINION: “Dear Public: Stop Being So Uptight. Love, Neil”

From: Office of the Governor

To: Residents of Hawaii, and a few transient hippies

Gosh do I ever miss Congress.

You people never asked any questions back then. All you wanted was money. Money for schools, roads, monk seals…whatever. And you didn’t care how I got it for you.

For 20 years, I did whatever it took. Lunch with Gingrich? It was deafening. Cigars with Clinton? Don’t ask.

Once, I followed Speaker John Boehner into his real office, a spray-tanning room where NRA lobbyists feed him grapes all day. Wanna know why he cries so much? One word: Dihydroxyacetone.

Dihydroxyacetone at work? Image courtesy University of Wisconsin-Whitewater.

But I digress. I ditched DC to get away from those clowns, to spend the last act of my life in a place I truly love.

It wasn’t easy when I got here. A nasty recession was raging and state revenues were plummeting. To top it off, I discovered state-level lobbyists carry a lot less lunch money. But I persevered, hungry.

Things are a little better now. But I’m here to tell you we’ve still got problems. Money problems.

I’m trying to get creative, folks. A little PLDC here, a little natural gas there… this one-time hippie is trying to help turn this place around, using a few lessons learned after 20 years in Washington.

You see, our economy doesn’t run on good intentions alone. If that were the case, there really wouldn’t be any children left behind (yeah, I voted for it. My bad). At some point we need a few dollars to keep this place from falling apart, and I’m trying to avoid asking for your dollars.

First, about this PLDC business. I’ve accepted the fact that this thing is going down in flames. It was poorly written, to be sure. But is it a totally bad idea to make a buck off public lands, for the benefit of <drumroll> the public? Do you people seriously prefer more taxes? Yeesh.

If you weren’t aware, we’ve got a mini-version of that PLDC dud being passed around at the Capitol right now. It would let us “re-develop” public school lands, in an effort to patch the bleeding over at the DOE. That bill is being re-written as it goes, and would give us five chances to prove our worth with this whole public-private thing.

That’s right. We’re just asking you to let us try five projects to earn a dime on school property. That dime stays on school property, so could you give it some thought? Pretty please?

These new proposals might not be worded perfectly, but at some point we’re going to have to find a few extra bucks. To be blunt, stop being so uptight, or start writing us a check.

I may be progressive, but I’m also a realist. We’re trying to do a few repairs around here, while making life a little more affordable.

John Boehner: Thinker. Leader. Tanner.
Image courtesy California Lutheran University.

After 20 years in Washington, I thought I’d earned some of your trust. Or maybe, after being in politics for this long, my image has just grown stale.