Anyone who has ever had older siblings knows that in life there is a pecking order, and often that order never changes.

Every candidate for governor always promises two things – to cut property taxes, and eliminate the “waste” in state spending. Both of those pledges are awfully easy to make—and play well on a television ad—and much harder to achieve.

I am told—I do not have experience in this area—that, as a parent, one of the experiences you dread is getting a phone call in the middle of the night.

“When there’s a will, there’s a way.” That was a phrase that surfaced regularly at the end of state legislative sessions. It referred to the hope that bills that appeared dead might be resurrected.

When I was a little kid, my grandma had a big book of illustrated children’s stories, among which was the folktale “The Emperor’s New Clothes.” As a little guy, I loved that story. Mainly, because the idea of a king prancing around naked, unbeknownst to him, was comical.

On Saturday, when I woke up, I found the type of site that no one wants to discover on their bathroom floor in the morning. A puddle.

Back in the day, a small, “trial balloon” would be sent aloft to discern wind speed and direction before a balloon carrying people was launched. Folks were rightly concerned about rising into the heavens blindly, without knowing if a catastrophic whirlwind was aloft.

Over nearly twenty years, I lost track of how many times I was required to drive to Whiteclay to report on a protest about the beer stores there.

The old saying, “Do as I say, not as I do,” came to my mind last week while I was in the most precarious of positions.

Many have tried, and few have succeeded, in expanding the state’s sales tax base by taxing things now exempt from taxation. But that is where Governor Jim Pillen is venturing in his pursuit of property tax relief.