Arlene, for every one of us who grew up in New York or New Jersey and saw a society totally destroyed by the Democrats, there is someone else who wants to recreate the nightmare that is the Northeast, right here. Read these boards regularly, and it will amaze you. Some want to create WAVE in the NYC MTA image, saddling taxpayers with supporting a bottomless black-hole for money that will never be self-supporting. Some advocate an all powerful combined county-city government, as you see in the five counties of NYC. Still others want unions to gain power and do away with the right-to-work law.... ...and there is no limit to those who will vote for any bond referendum or tax increase because they have that Northeast mentality that subconsciously thinks, "The government can spend my money wiser than I can. They will take care of me." For some reason, after a few years away from that hell-hole, they start to view it as Parsdise Lost. Unfortunately, it's not only the Northeast (or here) that's plagued with fans of Big Nanny Government. That was evident in that spectacle of Socialism last week in Denver. Democracy only works as long as 51% of the voters are intelligent, productive members of society. When the "societal panhandlers" and their sympathizers gain the majority, economic collapse is at hand.