“The future ain’t what it used to be.”

Yogi Berra, baseball catcher, manager and coach.

For a reference point, I completed this column the evening before Election Day so it is useless for me to predict who won, but then again it was a choice between two evils running for president of the United States. My personal thought is that that couldn’t be any worse than what we have already, and I am not bashful about stating that. What I worry about the most is not which candidate wins but what, in fact, the winner will do to our country. The sad part is that that is also true of all levels of office because each level has an influence on our lives as well. That’s even true in Windham where it is sad to state that there was a council seat that no one ran for.

Without a doubt the referendum questions that Mainers faced this election cycle will have the biggest effect on everyone living in Maine. Some effects will be obvious and some won’t, but what bothers me to this day is the large amount of out-of-state money used to influence Maine voters. I could just vomit over the fact that a very rich and former mayor of New York City would use his enormous amount of money to change how we live in Maine. What will be far worse is if Maine voters passed Question 3 on this year’s ballot. I used to like the idea of people being able to petition their government, but even that has been overtaken by the money of the rich and famous (at least in their own little minds).

On what might seem a separate note, I drove into Portland via Route 302 for an appointment with my cardiologist at the Portland VA clinic. All seemed to go well until I was closer to where Route 302 and Riverside Drive meet, which is where Route 302 becomes two lanes for a short distance. I noticed this dark-colored Jeep weaving in and out of traffic in an attempt to move forward faster than other drivers. As anyone knows who drives into Portland on Route 302, there are plenty of traffic lights and many of them are not far apart. So here I saw an idiot driving like a maniac, weaving between lanes to save a few precious seconds (at least in his minuscule brain) only to be in front of me at the next traffic light, then the next one and so on.

Most of us see this happen every day, even in North Windham, but it made me think of one thing. Since the next day was Election Day, I wondered who an idiot driving like this would vote for. Or even worse, would he like to smoke marijuana regularly, which may very well be the reason he was driving erratically in the first place? Anyone living on the River Road in Windham, especially the rebuilt portion between Routes 202 and 302, has undoubtedly seen how people fly up and down that road these days. I am sure that pertains to anywhere in the country where similar roads exist, so I have to ask one question of all elected officials at all levels of our government. Where does the money go?

Every election all of us hear those endless, and so far fruitless, promises of how they will make our lives great once again. Many of them spend seemingly endless amounts of money getting elected to office. Then they spend even more to make sure they stay in office by spending tax dollars to coerce people into voting for them once again. The only problem with that is that our roads just seem to get worse year after year and so the promises mean nothing. I see bond issues to fix the roads and bridges in Maine that promise jobs and better roads. Make no bones about, this money should be in Maine’s annual budget because Maine would still receive the so-called matching federal funds.

The one point I must make is that government does not make money, it spends it.

Lane Hiltunen of Windham will undoubtedly spend less this year.