I think most Americans are pretty happy about efforts being made to end the practice of wasteful federal government spending.  We can’t sustain $36 trillion on the nation’s credit card because the interest we pay is more than the military budget!

But boy are the Democrats screaming bloody murder! They’re acting toddlers who had their ice cream cones taken away from their hand. But let’s assume for this example the adult is taking away the cone in an effort to stave of obesity.

As much screaming as the Dems are doing, it just simply won’t make much of a dent in the overall budget that sees annual deficits of $2 trillion. At best, DOGE reports $100 billion in savings but likely a tenth of that. A trillion is 1,000 billion!

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About two months ago I wrote in my column that efforts were underway among state Assembly Republicans to enhance sentencing for arsonists. The bill was authored by Assemblywomen Heather Hadwick (R-Modoc) and Kate Sanchez (R-Temecula). You guessed it, the Democrats killed it. Juan Alanis was right: Democrats don’t want to add a single day to a criminal’s sentence.

AB 297 would add a sentencing enhancement of three to five years for arsonists whose evil deeds result in the burning of 500 or more acres of forestland.

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At last week’s Ceres City Council meeting, a woman named Catherine, addressed the issue of whether or not the city was going to tackle the blight of residents parking cars on lawns in light of the war on carports. She noted that “it looks really trashy also.” She said in her area there is a lot of that going on her neighborhood.

My understanding is that Code Enforcement does cite for parking on lawns. But with so much to do and so little resources, it’s not always a priority.

I too can’t understand why some people have no standard when it comes to how they treat their property which can affect the entire neighborhood. It’s like the broken window effect – when one property looks like crap it will result in other properties following suit. So thus a neighborhood that looked nice 30-40-50 years ago now looks ghetto.

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Another individual, Milt Trierweiler, got up and spoke about a “serious problem in Stanislaus County.” He spoke about how rich farmland is being swallowed up by development of houses and businesses.

I, too, am concerned about the loss of farmland but he went a little too far when he stated: “There are people here in Stanislaus County scheming to destroy the future for our children and our descendants. They plan to build more houses to bring in Bay Area people to live in Stanislaus County.”

Imagine, scheming to build houses for people. Really?

Like I tell people, as long as people keep having babies, you have to build houses for them. They can’t all be homeless or live with their parents their whole lives.

I don’t know if it’s about supplying homes for Bay Area people because we already are short on housing for our children already here so their futures would absolutely benefit from being able to buy their own homes! Will my grandchildren be able to buy a home in their hometown of Hughson or will the housing shortage only drive up costs so high that they couldn’t possibly afford a mortgage?

Blame it all on the Central Pacific Railroad that laid tracks down the Valley back in the 1870s and gave birth to towns that grew like Modesto, Ceres, Turlock, Atwater, Merced and Fresno, well you get the picture.

Noting that our area has the best farmland in the world, Trierweiler said “Once you build houses on this farmland, you will never be able to grow food on it again.” He called it irresponsible and suggested focusing on the foothills – such as along the Altamont Pass, foothills east of Oakdale and west of Patterson – to build homes where no crops are grown.

Trierweiler also suggested going up to four-, five-story buildings for apartments like we see in the Livermore area. Which means buying fire engines that can reach that high.

As long as the state mandates that all cities expand housing numbers by their formula, cities in the Valley will be forced to accommodate growth, meaning taking up more farm land. It’s an unfortunate reality that cannot be avoided.

Which brings Trierweiler to a claim he made: That another 900,000 acres of farmland between Stanislaus County and Bakersfield will go fallow because of the lack of water. It seems to me that our governor and the Sierra Club are responsible for the lack of new water storage projects for the Central Valley.

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For well over a year now, Councilman James Casey has continued to hammer the theme of getting more citizens involved in city government.

With all due respect that I give Mr. Casey, he doesn’t seem to realize that people aren’t involved because the city is failing to communicate. People don’t get involved because they don’t want to. They are apathetic. Unless it costs them money or affects them in a personal and tangible way – such as losing a carport they legally constructed – people don’t care about getting involved at the city council level.

Even Mr. Casey has admitted to me that before he served on the council he wasn’t that interested in the goings on at City Hall. Most people think city involvement is boring and they have other things to do.

There’s not much that can be done about apathy.

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The federal workers are going ape over DOGE.

And in California the state workers are flipping out because the governor wants them all to quit “working” from home four days a week.

They staged protests in Sacramento, calling it unfair. Spare me the vitriol.

One suggested that she wants a pay increase of four percent to offset the costs of gas getting to work and childcare. But considering how state workers skated by this long, I think they owe us some retro refunding of our tax money.

Look, working from home only works for diligent workers but how many are really producing? How many are slipping off to the mall or yoga or mini vacations or lounging in the backyard? After all, they aren’t wearing ankle bracelets.

 This column is the opinion of Jeff Benziger, and does not necessarily represent the opinion of The Ceres Courier or 209 Multimedia Corporation.  How do you feel about this? Let Jeff know at jeffb@cerescourier.com