Hoffman: Can’t Have Everything

When I was a youngster, my mother used to tell me “you can’t have everything.” And as a child, I really wanted everything—the latest everything that the 1980s could offer: a video game console (the Atari 5200) with lots of amazing games, the incredible state-of-the-art Tandy Color Computer 2 with a full 64k of memory and a new Emerson color TV. “Can’t have everything,” Mom reminded her spendy son. She later abbreviated the phrase for simplification purposes. “C-H-E,” she’d chide. I might enlist my mom to visit the Idaho Legislature, which really does seem to want everything—a 7.4 percent increase in spending for schools, an overall spending increase likely to top 6.5 percent, not to mention the mega increase in spending being proposed for state highways and bridges/ Wayne Hoffman , Idaho Freedom Foundation.