Wish

Tax reform wasn't on my Christmas list. Maybe it's my fault for believing at this point in my life that someone would read, and correspondingly heed my requests. The spritely comings and goings of a lone, weight advantaged individual who prefers the company of reindeer and little people have become the stuff of anecdotal legend in my world. I know who puts the stickers on all those Hot Wheels Super Garages. The idea that my wish would halt or even slow the momentum built up for this grand gesture by a Republican dominated government seems a little ridiculous now.
I had hope. Those Affordable Care Act saves and the Doug Jones win gave me that hope. Surely cooler heads would take a moment before the holiday recess to imagine a different solution to the top-down reward system offered up by this brain trust.
Or not.
Now I am left with a reality that barely recognizes my existence. A married household putting one child through college making less than seventy-five thousand dollars a year doesn't show up on the charts and graphs passed out along with the back slapping and handshakes that accompanied the signing of this tax "relief." As a school teacher, a public school teacher, I rely on taxes as not only the source of my income, but the continued function of my business. Knowing that there is another portion of this agenda that puts public schools on the chopping block makes me even more nervous.
Still, I have hope.
Why?
Because this is not a sprint. The absurdly quick pace that brought this flawed tax reform package limping out of Congress while dozens of reliable sources pointed to holes and flaws in the finished bill, including many Republicans, suggests that in the not too distant future there will be an equal and opposite reaction. If the people who were left hanging by this most recent legislative dog and pony show turn up at their polling places in 2018, there will be change to go along with that hope. It's not a sprint, after all. It's a marathon. If Santa can visit all those chimneys in one night, I believe there is fair and lasting change out there waiting to happen. In the twinkle of an eye.