Home > Thinking Right > Archives > 2007 > May > 17
Thursday, May 17, 2007
New Orleans; airport taxes; and amnesty
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Thinking Right’s free-for-all Friday. Pick a topic:
• It’s time for Democrats to set a firm troop withdrawal deadline. Regardless. A deadline. Period. National Guard troops have been patrolling the streets of New Orleans since last June when five youths were killed in a single day. The police superintendent is now asking that they stay through the end of the summer. At some point, the locals will have to stand on their own. Oh, yes, it’ll be chaotic, but if they are asked to remain any longer, we’ll have to restart the draft.
• When a crime occurs in an area where crime might be expected to occur, bystanders say “it could have happened anywhere.” When it actually does happen in those no-crime “anywhere” places, bystanders say “something like this never happens here.” Note to all TV reporters: For a $25 appearance fee, I’m on call to go to crime scenes to make the requisite pronouncement. If the weather’s not too bad, I’ll also go to tornado scenes to give the quote: “It sounded like a freight train.”
• A Fulton County man indicted for rape on the basis of DNA samples taken when he went to prison for cocaine possession files suit challenging the saliva-swab testing as constituting, among other things, an unreasonable and constitutionally prohibited search. The DNA challenge is before the Georgia Supreme Court. My legal opinion is that once we take a person’s liberty, the lessers follow — including the right to search and take anything in state custody, bodily or otherwise. (If I am to be quoted, please remit $30 as my expert witness fee, which is necessarily higher than my bystander-quote fee.)
• Atlanta airport General Manager Ben DeCosta is among those who want Congress to jack up the $4.50 per flying segment tax to $7.50 when the current tax expires Sept. 30. Two points: No “expiring” tax ever expires, unless it’s a tax cut. And the airport’s need to levy a “passenger facility charge” would be less if it spent at the airport the car rental taxes collected there. Instead, Atlanta uses them to fund unrelated projects and programs. It’s part of the usual ploy of taxing those who aren’t here to object.
• Have patience, America. The bad guys are falling one at a time, just as the nation was told initially. Joining Saddam Hussein, et al., this week is Mullah Dadullah, the Taliban’s top operational commander in Afghanistan. Victory is an option.
• Anticipating criticism, The Associated Press reports, U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) swears of the immigration agreement: “It is not amnesty. This will restore the rule of law.” A bill that instantly legalizes those who weren’t legal yesterday looks an awful lot like amnesty.
• Movie reviewers pack punch. Two especially memorable lead-ins to obviously lousy movies came in the last week. One, in the AJC, from Lisa Rose of the Newark, N.J., Star-Ledger, introduces us to Hollywood’s treatment of the military and Iraq, thusly: “After making a laughless, tasteless mockery of the war in Iraq, the creators of ‘Delta Farce’ have the audacity to end the movie with a dedication to the men and women of the military.” The headline writer gets a star, too: “This tasteless military farce desperately needs exit strategy.” (The lefties, incidentally, think they can trash anything related to the military if they pretend to honor them.)
The other comes from The Wall Street Journal reviewer Joe Morgenstern. Writes he: “Certain words should be reserved for special occasions. ‘Abysmal’ is one of them, and ‘Georgia Rules’ is as special as such occasions get.” Ouch! Our beloved Jane Fonda even takes anti-aircraft fire on the home front. “If, as Fonda has said, she’s ready to return to acting, I wish she’d return to acting,” wrote Eleanor Ringel Gillespie, the AJC’s reviewer.
• Let’s see now. … When the director of a liberal think tank with ties to the administration of former Gov. Roy Barnes and who, furthermore, opposes tax cuts and favors more spending for social programs starts to opine about Republicans, it is with the authority with which I speak for Nancy Pelosi. Alan Essig waxes on about tax-cutting Republicans and “the responsible” ones.
• Gov. Sonny Perdue approaches press censorship when he insists “until you get a better idea [on Iraq], keep your mouth shut.” I, for one, will fight to the death for the rights of my liberal colleagues to voice their opinions.
Permalink | Comments (151) | Post your comment | Categories: Column
Think south for airport relief
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
It’s just in the first-mention talking stage, but a remark here by U.S. Secretary of Transportation Mary Peters has prompted new attention to the prospect of a second major commercial serving Metro Atlanta.
“Atlanta’s leaders will have to embrace new airports and new ways of thinking if they want this city to remain a national symbol of good connections and not become a destination of delays that would make rush hour on the connector feel like a pleasant Sunday drive,” Peters said during a news conference here this week.
While awaiting the start of Senate debate on an immigration bill that’s projected to make few happy, the idea of a second airport does bear discussion.The city owns land in Dawson County that was purchased decades ago as a potential site. It’s unlikely however, given the development that’s come to North Georgia, that a second airport there is still politically viable. The lesson of that story is: Put in the roads and build the necessary infrastructure before people come. Afterwards it’s contentious and costly.
If rail advocates are serious about trying to turn a white elephant idea (commuter rail) into something workable, and if the state is serious about spreading economic development, a second airport should go to the middle part of the state, perhaps Macon or Warner Robins. A rapid-rail connection to Atlanta would then make sense. Rapid rail might make sense, too, to Chattanooga if the airport is expanded there as the two cities, Atlanta and Chattanooga, grow together.
The growth market is north, the economic development need south. The state, by the way, should do essentially nothing by way of providing financial incentives to people and industries moving to the Atlanta area and northward. They’re coming — if the state acts responsibly to eliminate transportation barriers. One major barrier is the lack of a connection linking I-75 and I-85 across North Georgia. Incentives, including the proposed senior tax break, should be limited to counties that are either stagnant or losing population.
