One of my dear friends told me yesterday--in light of all of the hull-a-ba-loo that is going on--that the most frightening words in the world were the words:  "I'm from the government; I'm here to help."

The recent threat from the federal government to withhold funds for schools if they didn't open, reminded me of an incident back in the 60's.

Pryor was involved in a state vote as to whether the state should accept funds from the government for our schools.  My mom got a picket sign and protested along with one other teacher.  Everyone else thought that federal funds would raise teacher's salaries and the schools would have more money.  Duh.

Of course, it didn't.  The only thing Oklahoma got out of the deal was rules and mandates from the federal government on how Oklahoma schools had to run things from then on.  Local school boards lost most of their power and local citizens got no say in the changes the feds made about their schools.

Two years after the vote, almost everyone in my mom's school told her they were sorry they didn't support her.  That they had made a terrible mistake.  She was highly respected both before and after the vote.  She was just a little smarter than the average bear.  

Will Rogers had the same view of the feds as my mom did.  The states know better what their state needs.  Ken did too.  His philosophy on how to vote was to make sure you didn't have a president and congress from the same party.  It was the only way to assure that they wouldn't get anything done.  Because every time they do something it makes things worse.  He said it tongue in cheek, but I wonder if it isn't really true!!!