The Ant and The Grasshopper

Once-upon-a -time, not too long ago there was a country where the population consisted of   ant and grasshoppers communities.

Both communities were diverse. The ant communities consisted of white ants, black ants, and ants of a myriad of colors and beliefs. The grasshopper community consisted of a population just as diverse.

The land where the ants and grasshoppers lived was very fertile. The  hard working ants were able to plant enough seeds to not only provide lunches for themselves and their families, but to provide free lunches for the grasshoppers.

The primary difference between the two communities is that the ants believed in hard work, saving for the future and paying their fair share to help support all the communities in the land.

The grasshopper community consisted of those who believed hard work was for suckers, as was saving for the future and paying their fair share to help others.

Whenever an ant was successful the grasshoppers falsely attributed the reason for the ant's success was because the ant knew someone, had a connection or was lucky. The grasshopper leaders never attributed success to hard work. In fact they despised the ants. They made it seem successful ants who wished to keep some of the fruits of their labor for their families as unpatriotic or miserly, or somehow bad.

For a time income and employment were at all time highs. Property values and property taxes were at record levels. Revenue from sales taxes on goods and gasoline sometimes doubled. For years the money poured into the coffers of the land.

During this time of plenty the leaders of the grasshoppers and even the leader of the ants gave more free lunches and many other programs to more and more grasshoppers and did not set any money aside for when the bad days would come.

The bad days did arrive. They came with the rapidity of an oncoming train. There was little reserve in the larder.

However, almost empty larders did not stop the leaders of the grasshoppers from promising more free lunches, even though there was no seeds to pay for them.

The grasshopper leaders took the seed that should have been used to grow more lunches and used them for free lunches leaving no seeds for tomorrows lunches.

The consequences of the actions taken by the Grasshopper leadership is graphically shown in the official Department of Seed illustration.

However grasshoppers being grasshoppers believed what they wanted to believe, not what the facts told them. They clamored for more free lunches, and even felt they deserved free bags to put their free lunches in.

Meanwhile, pity the poor ants who had diligently saved for a rainy day. The grasshopper leaders demand the ants share more and more of their lunch seeds with the grasshoppers. Soon the grasshoppers created more and more taxes but did little to curtail the growing number of free lunches and free lunch bags. They even passed a VAL tax (Value After Lunch tax) that said anyone who planted seeds for their lunch had to pay an additional seed tax in order to feed those who deserved free lunches.

The ant leaders argued if the increase in free lunches was not reigned in, soon there would be no seed to grow free lunches for anyone.

The ant leaders were ignored. Soon what had been a free and prosperous land became one where everyone except the ruling grasshoppers was poor.

The moral of the story? There is no such thing as a free lunch unless you are a ruling grasshopper.