Commentary By Samuel Strait – February 8, 2023 While lack of trust in any form of government was a consistent theme of populations through out human history, never before was a governing document composed with an over riding distrust of government in general as that of the original Constitution of the United States of America. Our founders penned the document that was to provide the guiding principals for governance in this Country for the past two hundred and nearly fifty years. It included not only guidance for the formation of government, but also provided for mechanisms should government betray those guiding principals. Historically there have been times when citizens of this Country have felt that those principals have been violated and ignored by those that represent their constituents and governing bodies were called to task during elections. Yet, the guiding principals of smaller, less intrusive government have long since faded into the mists of time. Our current governing bodies at all levels have become the dysfunctional monsters that the founders feared would result from the unchecked governing of this Country. We now have the monster that our founders warned us about, far more than the essentials for the benefit of the citizenry. The government at all levels is directly responsible for the gross level of inflation we are now experiencing. A growing government requires a growing level of funding, which regularly outstrips the taxing needed to pay for such growth. More government requires more taxes or borrowing, neither of which is a benefit to those paying the bills. At our local level we have seen an explosion of growth in local government which we can neither afford nor continue. The recent policies of federal, state and local governments have destroyed our economy which has yet to recover. Policies that forced working Americans to sit at home for nearly three years, have devastated small business and created a work force that is reluctant to return to work. In the meantime our local government which did not suffer from the privation of no work, no pay, has escalated the burden of increased taxation with no real added value to the community they are meant to serve. Quite the contrary they have become the problem. Representative governing has become beholden to those government employees in growing numbers who no longer benefit those they are hired to benefit. Most of the citizenry barely recognize what it is that is being done to insure the health, wealth, and continuing prosperity that was at the core of what the Constitution was meant to be all about. Government now intrudes where it was never meant to intrude, for the most part making American lives more difficult not easier. It is found in our local City, and County governments. It is found in our State government. And it is especially so in our Country's government. They have become what the founders most feared, the PROBLEM!