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Friday, June 15, 2007
Voter ID; stem cell bill; and MARTA
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Thinking Right’s Friday free-for-all. Pick a topic:
• Stop the presses! A severe traffic bottleneck in metro Atlanta is getting fixed. Not with “alternatives” such as bike trails or buses. Fixed. After more than a decade of talk, Gwinnett County, the Evermore Community Improvement District, and the state and the feds are spending the money to add a sixth lane and to make other improvements along traffic-snarled U.S. 78 . Either add capacity or stop the kind of development that makes traffic worse.
• And more! Cobb is adding turn lanes to the second-most dangerous intersection in the region, Barrett Parkway and Cobb Place Boulevard. High density makes widening cost prohibitive.
• HOPE stipends have cut merit scholarships out of much of their market. Those who object to higher college tuition for illegals should encourage foundations and private-sector givers to direct a few scholarships to brainy illegals. Government doesn’t always have to be the solution.
• The packed-stage presidential candidate debates featuring more bodies than can be squeezed into a prom-night limo is the best side-by-side public face of the two parties that I’ve seen anywhere. My guess is they’re represented on stage — the fringes, too — in about the same number they exist in party ranks.
• President Bush and U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson each pulled 65 percent of the vote in Georgia’s 10th Congressional District in 2004. Gov. Sonny Perdue got 64 percent last fall. So does a Republican, probably state Sen. Jim Whitehead of Evans, win the special election Tuesday — or in a July 17 runoff? Next Tuesday’s my bet.
• Congress is a political playpen. Passing an embryonic stem cell bill the president has already vetoed, and promises he will again, is an example. So, too, was Iraqi troop funding with a surrender deadline.
• Less than a month after vetoing $142 million in tax cuts because of fears that revenues would be less than projected, May revenue numbers are in. Collections were up 28 percent in May over last year, aided by a 45.4 percent increase in income tax collections. Subprime and payday lenders get accused of gouging with lower rates of return. April income tax collections were down 24 percent, but suspicious House members said it was because the revenuers weren’t cashing checks to paint a picture of gloom. The cynics.
• Voter ID was unanimously upheld by the Georgia Supreme Court. Opposition to voter ID has never been anything more than a partisan attempt to frighten the Democratic base to the polls. One plaintiff dropped out after getting a state-issued photo ID. Another produced a MARTA card issued under the Americans With Disabilities Act, which is a qualifying photo ID.
• At a cost to taxpayers of $32 per ride — or $1,600 for the 50-trip limit MARTA proposed for the disabled — the paratransit shuttle service bleeds red ink. Users pay $105 per month for curb-to-curb service. Only about 22 of the 3,400 disabled riders take more than 50 trips per month. And even with that few affected, MARTA can’t make a modest budget-cutting decision stick. It backed off.
• Disputes about whether something is “safe” — the highways, the skies, food, the air — crop into the news almost always in three contexts: labor troubles, a desire for more taxpayer money spent according to somebody’s agenda, or an effort to force an interest group’s preferred regulatory change. Federal Aviation Administration Chief Marion C. Blakey insists skies are “absolutely safe” despite staffing questions being raised by its union.
• Every farm group in the United States loves free trade — so long as it doesn’t threaten their subsidies. Brazil and India want subsidies cut, insisting U.S. taxpayers unfairly depress international prices, making it hard for other nations to compete. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and U.S. Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) should hold their breath until the policy is changed. That’s just my recommendation.
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