“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Marie said angrily and banged her fist on the table next to the computer.

“What’s bothering you now?” asked Cal, not looking up from his computer screen.

“I can’t believe out legislators in Sacramento. They struggle with a budget which is $40 billion in the hole; they got no money to pay for the programs they haven’t cut yet, and then they file a whole slew of new bills that require more spending! What world do they live in?”

“Not ours,” said Cal sadly. “They live in a world where in the middle of the worse crisis they can face as a legislator, trying to save the state from bankruptcy, they go off to be wined and dined at some wine country resort.”

“So how bad are they screwing up this time?” asked Grady.

Marie said, “They introduced over 2300 bills and a whole lot of them are for new programs or expanded old programs. More spending on top of this budget mess.”

“But they come here to do stuff,” Cal said. “You know, fix problems that they see. Make things better for people.”

“Make things better for special interests that ask them to,” Grady chimed in.

“Some of that, too,” said Cal. “But they want to improve government.”

“The real problem is in the name,” Grady said.

“What do you mean?”

“Lawmakers. Think about it. They’re called lawmakers. So they think they are elected to make laws. That’s why you get 2300 bills when all they should be doing this year is plug the holes and make sure the thousands of laws passed the last few decades are working.”

Marie added, “What they should be doing is eliminating some of those old laws.”

“Right,” said Grady.

“So the answer to this problem is to change their titles?” asked Cal, skeptically.

“Correct. That would change everything. How’s law fixer?” asked Grady. “Or, even better, law remover? I know, I know--- Un-Lawmaker, now that has a ring to it.”