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Monday, February 19, 2007
Spending bill details right state limits
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The spending lid state senators reconsider Tuesday is far from the draconian measure critics contend.
In last week’s floor debate, clear distinctions emerged between those who believe Georgia’s problem is that it “invests” too little in programs — the politically correct marketing term for spending — and those who recognize that politicians always succumb to pressure when the money’s there. The politician’s only discipline, the only one, is their belief that the money’s not there — or is, at least, inaccessible.
State Sen. Chip Rogers (R-Woodstock) has proposed a constitutional amendment that is hardly draconian. “At the end of the day, it would not limit flexibility or take away the powers of the General Assembly” to spend as they see fit, said Rogers. It would, however, add transparency and accountability, and therefore draw attention, to budget creep.
When Rogers brought the amendment to the floor last week, 33 Republicans and one Democrat — State Sen. J. B. Powell of Blythe, whose district runs from suburban Augusta through the rural counties between there and Macon and there and Savannah — voted in favor. Powell’s support, which I had failed to acknowledge in this column on Sunday, is telling. He was re-elected last November with 51.4 percent of the vote in a district that should be a walk-over for a Democrat. Yet, Gov. Sonny Perdue won it with just more than half the vote in 2002 and President Bush carried it with 54.5 percent of the vote in 2004.
His support is evidence that politicians who represent districts where a voting majority is concerned about the cost of government recognize the need for discipline. Until at least three more Senate Democrats agree that voters should be given a chance to decide whether flexible boundaries should be applied to most government spending, Georgians won’t have a say. The question before the Senate, as Rogers noted, is “should the people who pay the bills have an opportunity to have their voice heard?”
Georgia is in danger of falling into the partisan split that exists in Washington — the split that cost Max Cleland his seat in the U.S. Senate. Before Cleland, most Georgia Democrats managed to draw distinctions between their votes and those of the national Democratic Party. Cleland, however, chose to vote the party line, thus succeeding in making himself a central-casting national Democrat — a lesson, incidentally, absorbed by U.S. Congressman Jim Marshall (D- Macon), who was one of two Democrats in the U.S. House to break ranks with his party in last week’s Iraq resolution.
For candidates with statewide political ambitions in Georgia, it is dangerous to establish a brand identity that merges the locals with the nationals, when the nationals fare poorly here.
The “draconian” label applied to the Rogers bill came from state Sen. Nan Orrock (D-Atlanta), who offered a litany of “investments” Georgia needs to make in education and social programs.
Clearly, liberals will never agree that limits, however loose, should be applied to state spending. But that discipline is precisely what the executive and legislative branches need now. Rogers’ resolution excludes revenues derived from the lottery, from motor fuel taxes, from tobacco settlement funds, from genuine user fees and from other specified categories.
The General Assembly could always spend more this year than last and, in emergencies, could waive limits. If the state collected excess revenues above the rate of government inflation plus population growth, it would have four options: pay down debt, save it for hard times, spend it on education or return it to taxpayers.
“If I gave you $100 this year, and next year I said I was going to give you $107, and you can spend $105 in any way you want, but you can only spend $2 in these four areas,” said Rogers, “you always get to spend more this year than last year in any way you want.”
Needs should compete for available revenue. Legislators won’t make tough choices until it’s forced on them. The system now is that every available dime is spent. With spending comes turf-protecting special interest groups that complain, when they are insufficiently rewarded with more spending, that their programs are being “slashed” by mean-spirited legislators who would kick the sick and disabled kids and grandmas to the curb.
The only cure for that ailment is to make certain that programs compete for limited cash so those that have outlived their usefulness and those that are ineffective face a day of reckoning. Rogers’ amendment is that tool.
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Weekend’s news: illegals, pit bulls and Iraq
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Notes from the weekend:
Item: U.S. Rep. William Jefferson (D-New Orleans), reelected despite an ongoing federal probe into whether he took bribes in connection with a telecommunications deal in Africa, will likely be appointed to the Homeland Security committee by Speaker Nancy Pelosi. As noted by U.S. Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.), Jefferson couldn’t be trusted to serve on the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee after the FBI found $90,000 in cash in his home freezer, “so why should he be given access to our nation’s top secrets” or make national defense policy?
Item: Local law-enforcement officials, including the Cobb County Sheriff’s Department, are being trained by the feds to start deportation proceedings against illegals jailed for felonies or for driving under the influence. The critics are said to be worried that the program involving state and local police and the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency will “damage the trust between police and immigrant communities while opening a door to racial profiling.” That’s the thinking that caused immigration laws to be massively ignored in the first place. Cobb Sheriff Neil Warren is having none of it. “If someone is here illegally and commits a crime, whether a misdemeanor or felony, they need to serve their sentence and be deported,” said he. I’m with Neil.
Item: Pit bulls should be banned from urban areas — and kept in cages in the country. A 2-year-old girl in DeKalb was mauled to death Friday by two dogs that escaped from a fenced yard. One was a pit bull. Potential owners should be required to show proof of million-dollar insurance coverage. Pit bulls are the animal equivalent of rapid-fire weapons. I really don’t see a need to own either.
Item: If Democrats who controlled the purse strings subsidized excursion and freight trains in rural areas when they were in control at the Statehouse, Republicans should subsidize MARTA and commuter rail — or so it is argued by rail supporters. Huh? I tell you what Statehouse Republicans should do. They should pass the bill by State Rep. Steve Davis (R-McDonough) to shut down the Georgia Rail Passenger Authority. Advocacy groups shouldn’t be on the taxpayers’ tab.
Item: Newt’s right, twice. Once in observing that “the current process of spending an entire year running [for a party’s presidential nomination] in order to spend an entire year running in order to get sworn in in January 2009 is stupid.” He’s staying out at least until November, by which time he could be the fresh face sought by a public exhausted with the candidates. That’s once right. The second time was when he observed on Fox TV that Democrats are playing a cynical game with Iraq. “They want the ability to undermine the President, the ability to cripple the Defense Department, while disclaiming all responsibility,” he said.
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