I’ve often heard it said that ‘you cannot run government like a business.’ I find it hard to agree with every aspect of that statement.  In government, officials may have limited control over revenue but have almost full control over managing expenditures. I have learned first-hand the value of money management.  My family struggled financially during my childhood when five of us lived in a small, four-room house.  We had no indoor restroom (just an outhouse.) Christmas to us three children consisted of fruit, candy and a flannel shirt…maybe a used bike to share if we had been especially good. I learned at an early age the importance of controlling expenses.  

I’m told that on the day I was born, my father had a $10.00 bet that I would be a boy.  The little clinic had no air conditioning so Daddy sat on the grass just under the open window of the delivery room, holding a $30.00 pocket watch he had bought that week.  In his excitement upon hearing the nurse say, “It’s a boy”, he hurled the watch across Columbia Road and down into the woods…never to be seen again.  In essence, Daddy spent $30 to make $10. If elected officials who are entrusted with public funds spend $300,000 to get a $100,000 return, those officials would not be worthy of public trust. The difference in this example is that the $30 watch Daddy tossed was HIS money.  The money spent in Montgomery is YOUR money.  There’s a huge difference.  Part of my responsibility as an elected official will be to stop the waste and mismanagement of our tax dollars.