The Record Newspapers - Hometown News For Orange County, Texas

Early in our marriage Beverly and I were looking for a house to be our home in Port Arthur. Our problem, like many young couples, was lack of enough money to even produce a required downpayment. We located a home that was ideal, which later turned out to be where we raised our children. Even though the price was reasonable it was more than we could afford for a downpayment to finance. I approached our local banker who came up with a great solution. He asked if the house needed any substantial repairs. It was a two-story house and badly needed painting. He suggested that he would accept what he called “sweat equity.” He would give me enough credit to make up for lack of a down payment if I would repaint the entire house. I did so, we moved in and raised our children in a quite nice neighborhood in Port Arthur.

We Americans need to consider investing sweat equity in preservation of the democratic form of government. If we are too lazy to even make the effort to seek and find the best qualified leaders of our state and nation, we will truly be in trouble. It takes a little effort to make the down payment on good government. We should be ashamed if we do not follow through and dedicate sweat equity to American citizenship.