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In shooting a rifle, you can

• Focus on the target some distance away putting it on top of the pointer on the end of the rifle barrel, or
• Focus on the iron sight on the end of the barrel, and put the blurred image of the target on top of the sight.
• Get a good rifle scope that puts both the sights and the target in focus.

I started to write about the choices county commissioners have to make in tough economic times, but I stopped.

I can't remember a time when commissioners, or other government bodies for that matter, have said that their coffers were full and things were great.  They always stress how difficult the budgeting process is; someone has to give up something, they say.

So, why is it then that they continually have problems in just looking at the end of the barrel?

Our county commission just fired the industrial board because the board wouldn't bail out the county budget.  Seems to me like that's giving up your kids' college fund to buy groceries.  It's wrong.

I did some other looking at their treatment of the industrial board.  One of the commissioners, a friend who I usually respect, complained a few years ago about another industrial board giving an industry some tax relief.  In his view, the county budget was shorted a few tax dollars.  Talk about looking at the end of the barrel and only seeing a blurred target!

What is the blurred target?  New jobs come to mind--can't do that without recruiting industry.  Tax dollars also--it would be nice to have jobs in the county where people commuting to Nashville do not stop to buy groceries there; we need our own sales tax dollars.  Multiplier effect?  Jobs here plus sales tax dollars lead to incentives for new businesses which lead to more tourism which leads to a better living environment which gets picked up on by industrial scouts which bring new industry which brings new jobs which bring new business which bring new tourists which bring....

Seems to me like it's time to either

• Get a scope for the rifle so that both sights and target are in plain sight.  But, that entails getting the commission to do some serious planning at some cost, or
• Get a new shooter.  Fire the commissioners.