These are nerve-wracking times for people of good faith. Those who want to believe what their leaders tell them can get apprehensive when the stakes are suddenly and dramatically raised at the same time they are told, “Time is running out. Act decisively now or suffer the consequences later.” It is the classic closing to a high-pressure sale. As we sign on the line, we can’t help but wonder, “Did we just get taken?”

We could be talking about the proposed $700 billion Wall Street bailout by the American taxpayer, but we are not. That surprised and alarmed us. But so did the sudden expense and the urgency of the $6 million-plus needed to supplement the $38.8 million appropriation approved last April for the Newtown High School expansion project. In both instances we believe that the urgent need more than justifies the cost. In both instances we wonder why at a time when we are inclined toward caution and prudence, we are asked to suspend those inclinations and to trust the expertise of those who have brought us to this precarious point in the first place. As we said, it is nerve-wracking.

Having the high school expansion budget overrun unfold here in Newtown against the backdrop of a national financial crisis has import beyond its mere coincidence. The risks and liabilities assumed so casually by mortgage brokers and bankers in recent years and passed on to investors everywhere in the form of securities, is now completing the trip from Wall Street to Main Street. If the big bailout is successful, we will pay off the debt as taxpayers, as will many succeeding generations of taxpayers. If it is unsuccessful, we will pay as consumers of credit. No one loans money in a marketplace of broken promises, and as credit markets freeze, our employers will announce layoffs and benefit cuts because they cannot get the loans they need to operate, and the rest of us will be unable to get the loans we need to buy a house, finance a car or an education, or even start our own business.

We still believe that the best way forward is to seek approval from taxpayers for the $6 million needed to complete the proposed high school expansion. Given all the financial uncertainty playing out all around us, however, we just don’t know what their reaction will be. Will they still be people of good faith?