Words to live by.

As we await the General Assembly's biannual budget specifics, we suggest that its members take to heart the sage words to live by, bequeathed to us by none other than our Founding Father, Thomas Paine:

"Society in every state is a blessing, but government, even in
its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an
intolerable one; for when we suffer or are exposed to the same
miseries by a government, which we might expect in a country
without government, our calamity is heightened by reflecting that
we furnish the means by which we suffer."

-- Thomas Paine (Common Sense, 1776)