Did you get a gas bill this month? Was it about twice as high as last month’s?
Ouch.
Have you been to Food King lately? A basket costs a lot more than it used to.
They say that nationally, inflation has dropped off, but it’s not so you’d notice here. Maybe it takes a few hits to your bank account before you realize inflation’s effect. A nickel here, a dollar there, and pretty soon the paycheck you’ve been stretching snaps.
And El Pasoans don’t just suffer from the national inflation. We’ve got our own institutionalized homegrown inflation on top of that.
All those tax increases, all those utility hikes, are baked into every gallon of milk and six-pack of beer we buy. The warehouse owners have to charge more because their property values and taxes are going up. The fork lift operators need bigger paychecks to pay their bills. When electric rates go up, the shop owners have to raise prices to keep the lights on.
Storekeepers may ride it out for a month or two, but eventually all their extra expenses show up at the cash register and that means less money in your bank account.
I’m going to let you in on a little secret. Nobody cares about you. Everybody operates with their own self-interest in mind.
When they talk about economic development (and they talk about economic development a lot), they’re really trying to bamboozle you into supporting something that only benefits them.
Remember when they pitched those Quality of Life projects as vehicles for “Economic Development“?
Ha!
We’re paying for all those Quality of Life projects by sacrificing the quality of our lives. The economic development they promised never got here, and it’s not coming. The rich guys’ incomes aren’t trickling down to El Paso’s middle class. They’re up in their luxury suites eating caviar and drinking champagne while the rest of us eat beans and tortillas.
Those rich guys are like the people who show up for dinner at a fancy restaurant and leave before the check comes.
(On a personal note, I love beans and tortillas.)
You retired to El Paso thinking that you’d live comfortably, but now you’re eating cat food.
I know it’s not really as bad as all that, but it’s not over yet. El Paso Water has pledged to raise rates every year. El Paso Electric will raise rates just because it can. And our property taxes will keep going up as long as City Government keeps issuing bonds and spending money.
There’s no light at the end of the tunnel. Not even an oncoming train.