PICAYUNE, Miss. — I work in a small South Mississippi city, Picayune, with a population of about 25,000 persons. The city is located in the extreme southern end of Pearl River Co., which is the fourth largest county by square miles in Mississippi.

We are only about 50 minutes commuting  time from Canal Street in New Orleans, down I-59 and I-10.

I have lived here all my life. I am 64 years old today. The county has a population of about 50,000 to 60,000, I think.

I work for a newspaper, the “Picayune Item,” a small daily that publishes five days a week. I am a reporter.

As a reporter, I see a lot of, and report on,  public officials in the county and the city. I am aware of what they are dealing with and about how they are handling their jobs.

Now I was thinking the other day: In this one little county, which would be considered by national standards, a poor county when compared with others throughout the U.S., there are –

Three school boards, each school board consisting of five members and a superintendent of education. That right there is 18 public officials. I think the school board members get paid a stipend, maybe $100 a month, but each superintendent makes about $100,000 a year. I don’t dispute their salaries; they earn it.

There are two city boards in the county, Picayune’s, made up of five councilmen, a mayor and a city manager. The city manager does not vote; he manages the city, answering to the councilmen. Picayune operates under the city manager form of government, different from the traditional mayor-alderman form. Each councilman gets about $1,200 a month, the mayor $1,700 and the city manager about $60,000 a year.

On up the road is Poplarville, about 25 miles north of Picayune, which has a five-man board of aldermen and a mayor. I don’t know what they get paid, but I would imagine that it is a little bit less than Picayune.

Then there is the board of supervisors, made up of five supervisors, each elected from one of five beats or districts that cover the county. They each make about $44,000 a year, but that is not all. They each get a brand new truck and all expenses paid, including gas, for the use of that truck. There districts overlap the boundaries of the two cities. The traditional board of supervisors in Mississippi has a long and historic tradition. They go way back and they have the most powerful lobby in the state, the State Supervisors Association. In Louisiana it’s called a police jury.

The derivation of furnishing them transportation was once valid, but many believe they no longer need a truck. They used to take an active part in the maintenance and upkeep of their roads in their district, but now, all counties in Mississippi have been forced to go to the unit system. There road work is now handled by the road manager. They perform only an administrative roll. Nice benefit, though, huh?

And then on top of this we have a total of  five state legislators representing this one county. There’s state House representatives Mark Formby and Herb Frierson, and State Senators Sid Albritton and Ezell Lee, and another representative, I don’t know his name, whose district covers mainly Hancock County but it shoves up into a small portion of southeastern Pearl River Co. I think legislators make about as much as supervisors about $44,000 a year, maybe a little more, maybe a little less. I don’t know.

Now count it up, that’s approximately 36 public officials, mostly elected, to represent a county and run a county with about 60,000 persons. And oh yes, don’t forget the police protection: we have three police departments in this one little county, Picayune, Poplarville and the sheriff’s department. I don’t know how many they employ all together. That’s two police chiefs and one sheriff; the sheriff is elected. The two police chiefs in the two cities are appointed.

We also have what are called constables, and we have I believe two or three of them. They are elected.

That is about 40 officials who run the county, mostly elected, some paid a decent wage, others a pittance.

Now this is my take on this: We could combine the three school districts into one, we could eliminate the two cities, and let the supervisors run the whole county show, we couldfold the two city police departments into the sheriff department and let the sheriff administer the whole county law enforcement show; I mean we could really do some damage here on some budgets, some savings, by merging. Private enterprise does it all the time; why not government?

But no, government does a little cutting; rattles the pots and pans; and then comes back to taxpayers for another injection of cash in the form of higher taxes.

I have no doubt that if it were done right there would be a tremendous savings. However, I know this is a complicated matter and would have to be phased in by experts who know what they are doing, or we could have a disaster on our hands. I know that there are some government services that are direly needed and residents must have, but my suggestion is just that we should recognize what we have and see if there is a better way, and cheaper way, of doing things. Earlier generations did that, mostly because they were forced economically to do it.

And oh yes, the State Legislators. We could do away with the House and have what is called a unicameral system and have one Senator representing each of the state’s 82 counties. In other words, PRC would have one state legislator not five. That would cut the State Legislature from about 400 members to 82. Now that would be a great savings and we would eliminate a lot of dead representatives, oops!, I mean dead wood.

Now if the poor people of Mississippi and Pearl River County want to continue to pay for all these layers of government, then let them do it, and the ones on the public payroll will be glad to let us continue. But if we ever get serious about running our government efficiently and want to save taxpayer money, there is a way to save. But don’t look for it; I don’t believe it will ever happen, and if it ever does, it will be because the economy, after Obama gets through with us, will force us to do so.

Ask yourself, though, how much government do we really need. And just multiply what I have said by 82 times because that is how many counties Mississippi has. And by the way, why not look at consolidating some of the smaller counties?

So the ideal situation here would be one county school district, one board of supervisors, one police department and one legislator. Do you think that would work? I believe it could if we wanted it to.

I have visited New Hampshire. I understand they have done this. I believe they are the only state in the union that has a unicameral system.

What do you think?

If we, Pearl River County, successfully did it, one thing is for sure: We would be a great example to the rest of the U.S., and to Mississippi.

Pundits are saying that with the election of Scott Brown in Massachusetts to replace the liberal icon, the late Teddy Kennedy,  that Obama’s health care legislation is dead. The legislation is currently locked up behind closed doors with Reid, Pelosi and Obama representatives, being rewritten with deals being cut to win over votes and reward supporters.

There has been the Louisiana purchase, the cornhusker kickback and now comes the latest sleazy deal last week, the tax exemption gift to the powerful unions that have supported Obama from the first.

Now here is what I understand happened. Correct me if I am wrong.

Say, for instance, if you have health insurance that costs over $8,000 a year, under the current health plan proposal, you will be taxed 40 percent on that plan. That’s a plan that you would pay between $600 and $700 a month to own. That is almost one-half. Now, you will pay that tax if you do not belong to  one of the big public unions, say for instance the AFL-CIO,  that comes under collective bargaining, or if you are a member of a government union. They will be exempt. That will save union members about $60 billion over the 15-year life of the exemption.

But you, the lowly nonunion member will pick up that tax for the exempt union members. That is Obama’s method of spreading the wealth around, transferring it from you, the nonunion member, to the union member, mainly his supporters. It is an award for their support and to guarantee their future support.

In other words, the unions were rewarded and the rest of us were put into the slave category, the serfs, the wage slaves, who will work our butts off to help pay for the tax exemptions. Oh yes, don’t forget, Congress and the Amish are exempt from the health care plan, too. How in the hell, did the Amish get an exemption? What lobbyist group represents them?

Oh yes, and don’t forget, if you are a young person, who does not want to purchase insurance, say you feel real spunky and healthy, don’t worry, you haven’t been left out. When you file your tax form, you will be asked to prove that you have health insurance. If you don’t, you will be hit with a healthy, rather I should say hefty,  Obama health care tax so you can ante-up your portion of the shared health care burden. Remember, under the audacity of hope doctrine, we should happily and helpfully help subsidize our fellow citizen who might not be as lucky or fortunate as you are. Never ever say, or point to the obvious fact, that you are probably better off than your fellow citizens, because you work your ass off and he doesn’t. If you do, then you will be labeled a radical right-wing, wing-nut  Tea Bagg patriot, an ungrateful person and above all not politically correct in your assessment of your governments efforts to help the less fortunate.

In addition, you elders will see Medicare cut in half. That means nothing else but rationining and rationing means you will not get some services.

Please tell me what people did before the government got invovled in health care?

I remember in the 1950s health care was affordable and a visit to the doctor or a week’s stay in a hospital was no big deal. When the government got into it in the 1960s prices began to rise and they are still rising.

Everything the government touches, turns to crap. Am I wrong?

Of course, the health care plan might be dead now, as some pundits say. Or Democrats might find some way to crank it back up. They are very clever, the mainstream media is not doing its watchdog job and most Americans are too busy trying to make ends meet in this economy to keep up with what is actually going on, which takes a little research.

Today’s date is Jan. 23, 2010. Now let me get this correct. President Barack Obama made a speech yesterday in Elyria, Ohio, a small community outside Cleveland. He said that one reason that Massachusetts voters elected Brown was because of a reaction against the eight years of the Bush policies. He said the same anger that swept him into office, swept Brown into Teddy Kennedy’s vacant seat.

Now just how dumb does this man think we are?

Or, has he gone over the edge and is now suffering from delusions, unable to face or reconcile the reality he sees with the socialist templete he has in his brain.  I wonder. What are your views?