 Every stretch of coast in Florida has a
name. The Emerald Coast is around Pensacola. The Sun Coast is
around St. Petersburg. The Treasure Coast is Palm Beach. I grew
up in Brevard County. Brevard County is the Space Coast.
Where I went to school, you had a choice. You could watch
Mercury, Gemini, or Apollo spacecraft lift off on television. Or
you could go outside and watch them directly. They were 35 miles
away, but you could still see them. My father was pumping gas in
1986, and watched the Challenger explode.
My father was an engineer who worked for a government
contractor. He worked with a government engineer, a civilian
with the Department of Defense, and together they built a string
of telemetry antenna's that stretched from Merritt Island, into
the Bahamas, the lesser Antilles, the South Atlantic and South
Africa.
This civilian DOD engineer had a son who I grew up with. From
the moment he drew his first breath, until he left home, every
single calorie that crossed his lips was paid for by the United
States government -- just like me.
As a son of the space program, he was fascinated with flying. He
wanted to become a pilot with the Air Force, but his eyesight
was bad. He had to settle for being a navigator, but settle he
did. Being a highly intelligent young man, he was able to gain
admission to a prestigious engineering school, where he earned a
degree in electrical engineering -- and extraordinary difficult
course of study, in case you're wondering.
His education was paid for by an ROTC scholarship. In payment
for his education,,the government then paid him to serve as a
navigator on air force jets like the B-52. He wound up spending
20 years in the Air Force, retiring as a Lieutenant Colonel.
Which means that from the day he was born until he almost 45
years old, he never spent a single dollar he didn't get from the
United States government. He can literally claim to a be a
creation of the United States government, which government spent
literally millions of dollars on his education and training.
Indeed, the government started spending on his prosperity years
before he was born, when it sent his father to engineering
school on the GI bill.
This friend of mine, who grew up with me watching rocket ships
leave the earth from Cape Canaveral, occasionally complains
about having to pay taxes.
Meanwhile, on the other side of tracks, the government has spent
much less of his tax money mostly just keeping poor, uneducated,
kids alive. Where he and his parents enjoyed things like FHA and
VA mortgages to help them become home owners, poor folks get
Section 8 rent subsidies . . . subsidies that help other middle
class slum lord wannabe's pay the mortgages on their rental
properties. He and his parents were given very expensive
educations, and put to work in good paying government jobs.
What investment have we made on the poorest among us? |
