It is only by not paying one's bills that one can hope to live in the memory of the commercial classes.

Decades ago women suffered through horrifying back-alley abortions. Or they used dangerous methods when they had no other recourse. So when the Republican Party launched an all-out assault on women's health pushing bills to limit access to vital services we had to ask: Why is the GOP trying to send women back... to the back alley?

Mental agitations and eating cares are more injurious to health and destructive of life than is commonly imagined and could their effects be collected would make no inconsiderable figure in the bills of mortality.

I agree with just about everyone in the reform debate when they say 'If you like what you have you should be able to keep it.' But the truth is that none of the health reform bills making their way through Congress actually delivers on that promise.

It's God's will for you to live in prosperity instead of poverty. It's God's will for you to pay your bills and not be in debt.

This time instead of moving oceans and healing planets let's get our bills in order and pay down the debt so we control our own future.

It's fun to have money but the more money I get the less interesting it becomes. If you don't have very much you have to think about it. If you are starving you become interested in food. If you are struggling to pay the bills money becomes tragically important.

Men can absent themselves from real life for their art more easily. Women are anchored into the quotidian business of getting food on the table making sure everybody's socks match the soccer gear is ready. I admire idealists but they're usually enabled by someone who holds the tether on their balloon who pays the bills and sweeps up after them.

Thirteen thousand dollars a year is not enough to raise a family. That's not enough to pay your bills and save for their future. That's barely enough to provide for even the most basic needs.

We Hoosiers hold to some quaint notions. Some might say we 'cling' to them though not out of fear or ignorance. We believe in paying our bills. We have kept our state in the black throughout the recent unpleasantness while cutting rather than raising taxes by practicing an old tribal ritual - we spend less money than we take in.