By JEFFERSON WEAVER
Staff writer

With apologies to Jonathan Swift, I must offer this modest proposal:

Since gasoline is reaching hard toward $4 per gallon, and no one wants to stop driving, I suggest the government bring back rationing, ala World War II.

After all, it is unfair, unrealistic, and impractical to ask Americans to drive less, or at least consider more efficient vehicles. It’s ridiculous to think we might make the oil companies come around by using less fuel, hence lowering demand and forcing prices to drop. With rationing, we can all trust the federal government to take care of us and protect us from those evil oil companies. While the government decides how much gasoline we should all have, they can decide how much profit is acceptable for the oil companies.

While we’re at it, let’s ration some types of groceries. I went to the grocery store the other day – a task I try my best to avoid – and was shocked at some of the prices. I wanted to buy a nice steak, but since it was a meal between paychecks, we had to settle for something else. I think the government should do something about that. I should be able to eat steak anytime I want to, without worrying about whether I can afford it. Food prices should be further regulated, so let’s allow the government to regulate those costs, too.

Plus, if the government tells us what kinds of food we can and can’t buy, then we won’t have as many problems with health care.

After all, most Americans are apparently too ignorant to make the choice between healthy food and unhealthy food. Since we cannot make good choices ourselves, then by cracky, the government should make them for us.

Take the mortgage crisis, for instance.

Time was, even people who couldn’t read were able to buy a home, but not too many lost their homes and farms. They worked hard and even worse, used common sense.

Today, we have people who can read, since most of them attended government schools, but every time you turn around, someone’s losing a home they couldn’t afford to begin with.

Perhaps if the government regulated exactly how much of a home each of us needed, this problem would be solved. For the time being, however, the people who are crying out to save the homes they couldn’t afford to begin with should be given a free ride. After all, just because you sign a piece of paper saying you read and understood the terms of your mortgage agreement, just because you are supposed to have your own attorney explain such complicated things, that doesn’t mean you are actually responsible.

And then there are the people who sold those houses to the less advantaged – they should be ashamed, too. They should have known, somehow, that a credit report and statement of finances really do mean a person only has X amount of dollars, and if a home costs Y, then the person can’t afford it. They shouldn’t have sold those people a home that both the seller and the buyer knew they couldn’t afford. I mean, thousands of dollars magically appear all the time to help people get out of debt. I saw that on a late night TV commercial, so it must be true.

I guess all those evil mortgage companies forced people to buy homes they couldn’t afford, just so they could take advantage of those poor people who were greedy for a bigger house. They should be ashamed. The mortgage people wanted a nasty old profit, like the oil companies – and anybody that has to do with medical care.

It would greatly simplify the new national healthcare plan that would be paid for through the government’s confiscation of profits from those evil oil companies, as well as more taxes against any household earning above $50,000. The latter taxes would encourage people not to work so hard. The more people work, the more money they can make, and if the government doesn’t do something to prevent hard work, the whole world will fall apart. Well, maybe not, but it sure makes the lazy, unsuccessful people look bad.

Anyway, if people do not work as hard, they have less stress, hence, they have better health; therefore there would be less chance of a government regulator having to determine if someone is worthy of healthcare.

Oh yes, I forgot to mention – since we can’t take care of ourselves, we should institute the rationing of healthcare.

Everyone blames the skyrocketing cost of medical care on the lawyers who sue hospitals, the doctors who drive big cars and have nice homes, the insurance companies, and the drug manufacturers. I have a solution to that – let the government do it.

If the government stepped in and took over every single hospital and medical practice, think of all the profits that could be eliminated. Nobody really deserves a profit, do they? After all, if someone works hard and has a successful business, then they should be forced to give their money to those who haven’t worked as hard.

I’m sure that, when the profits seized from the oil companies and the rich people started to run out, common people wouldn’t mind paying a few hundred dollars a month for health insurance.

Since they will already be paying for gas and grocery coupon books – based on their need and the value of their jobs, of course – they won’t mind paying the same amount as everyone else for the same care.

Think about it: no more waiting in line at the doctor’s office, since every doctor would be required by law to give every patient say, 30 minutes.

You schedule your appointment two or three years in advance, and you can rest assured that if you have a serious illness, it will probably be treated before it becomes deadly.

Of course, if you are vital enough, you could be bumped up the line.

People with important jobs – occupations deemed by the government as vital – would naturally have priority over other people, like elderly folks, or those who knew better than to do what they did to become sick, like using tobacco, fried food or alcohol. After all, people like that have nowhere near as much value as someone else.

Think about it: no more waiting in emergency rooms, doctors no longer restrained by the silly old Hippocratic oath, no more worrying about community hospitals operating in the red. The government would pay for everything, and regulate everything, and determine exactly how much you need of what, and when.

Yes, indeed – it’s unreasonable to ask me not to take a trip to the beach just so I can save gas money. It’s not right that my wife, or anyone else’s wife, should have to work full-time so we can afford the things we want and need. It’s not right that Mr. Jim, my boss, should benefit from more than half a century of hard work and sacrifice. Like all other entrepreneurs, he should be punished for working so hard. He doesn’t set a good example for people to follow – he makes those of us who haven’t been successful feel bad. And he has absolutely no business supplying his employees with a health care plan – after all, that’s the government’s responsibility, isn’t it?

Of course, while we’re at it, after we decide who will make our decisions for us, we will need to regulate newspapers, the internet, and all places where one can freely speak his or her mind, or read what he or she wants.

We would likely need another tax to pay for this protection, but it would be okay, since we would no longer be bothered with thinking for ourselves.

After all, if we can’t force ourselves to buy a little less gasoline, thus forcing the oil companies to drop their prices, then we certainly can’t be expected to think, and we don’t deserve the right to express ourselves.

Come to think of it, if we’re going to regulate the ability of a company to make a profit off a product which all of us need, but the consumption of which many of us can control, then we really need to have rationing of all our constitutional rights, along with everything else.

After all, the government should have to take care of each of us, especially if we’re too lazy to work for a living, or not driven enough to succeed because someone hurt our feelings once years ago, or people don’t like us, or we just plain can’t. Isn’t it the government’s job to make everything all right?

As for me? I guess I’ll just keep my truck tuned up and buy less gas. We’ll buy what groceries we can afford, and maybe raise a garden this year.

When Miss Rhonda and I buy a house, we’ll find one we can afford. I’ll thank God every day my boss was successful enough to offer me health insurance, and if I decide I don’t like what he offers, I’ll go somewhere else and find someone who can make a better offer.

As immodest as most of the above proposal sounds (again, my apologies to Swift) I’m afraid I could see much of it happening; and if we as Americans aren’t willing to stand up, vote, and maybe even use a little less gasoline, then we will really get the government we deserve.