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Thursday, November 8, 2007
Property taxes, Pakistan, vouchers
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Thinking Right’s weekend free-for-all. Pick a topic:
• No need to wonder where voters stand on higher taxes and more government. Across the country, with rare exception, they rejected one grand scheme after another on Tuesday. Oregon even rejected a tax on cigarettes that would fund “healthy children” — the state version of the proposal now before Congress to wildly increase the cost of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program. Supporters blamed Big Tobacco. Big Tobacco has a lot of pull with voters in a tofu state. Voters rejected it because they know cost projections are smoke and mirrors.
• Nine labor unions representing Amtrak employees reject binding arbitration. A strike’s possible. Roads never strike. Once built we can use them at our convenience to go where we want when we want. You’ll never be rich if your job requires your presence for you to make money. We’ll never be truly mobile if getting there requires an operator.
• Subsidizing Amtrak will cost taxpayers $11.4 billion over the next six years under a bill the Senate passed 70-22. No longer is profitability a goal. Now it’s expanding service. Red ink by the gallons will continue to flow. Elections do have consequences.
• Sonny doesn’t think House Speaker Glenn Richardson’s GREAT tax plan is all that great. “How do we help homeowners who face rapid substantial escalations in these [property] assessments?” he asked at the Atlanta Press Club this week. How about a two-tiered property tax? Pay taxes annually on the basis of purchase price plus the rate of inflation. Then when it’s sold, recover the difference between that and assessments. Neither homeowners nor the tax man lose.
• More reasons Congress has an 11 percent approval rating: House Democrats, still milking the dismissal of eight U.S. attorneys for presumed political advantage, insist they’ll hold White House Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten and former presidential counselor Harriet Miers in contempt for refusing to provide information. And House Speaker Nancy Pelosi schedules a vote that will fund troops in Iraq and Afghanistan for four months — four months — tagged with a requirement that troop withdrawals begin immediately. These are unserious people.
• Clayton County commissioners have scheduled a 1-cent local option sales increase referendum for February — reason enough to vote no. A referendum to levy taxes or borrow money should always be held on primary or General Election day. The General Assembly should put it in law. They’re scheduled at other times to keep down turnout.
• If President Bush is reading our editorials, and if he heeds the advice to cut off Pakistan’s $10 billion aid because of Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf’s use of a national emergency declaration to seize power, and if, as a result of Bush following our advice, Musharraf falls and Pakistan becomes another Iran (with nuclear weapons), I’m boycotting the board’s next Global Warming Angst session. And don’t expect me at the Blame Bush retreat, either.
• How to tell if you’re a newcomer: The name Nick Belluso means nothing to you. He ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate, governor, lieutenant governor, secretary of state, the state House and Senate, Atlanta City Council and other offices. Died this week in Conyers at the age of 85.
• For education workplace unions, vouchers are the poison that will destroy their commanding influence over public schools, boards and legislatures. No surprise, then, that the National Education Association, the parent of Georgia Association of Educators, poured at least $3.15 million of teachers’ money into the successful effort to defeat a statewide voucher plan in Utah. Education reformers have to be creative in finding other routes — including charter schools and tax credits — to give parents choice.
• Who’d have thought any of us would live to see this day? But here it is, the president of France, Nicolas Sarkozy, sounds more rational about Iraq than House Democrats. “What does France want? A united Iraq. It is in no one’s interest to see Iraq dismantled. We want a democratic Iraq.” But then he’s not running here, counting on Iraq to give his party the White House.
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Good day for Rudy?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Like most potential voters drawn to the Republican presidential field, religious conservatives are in a quandary. Rudy Giuliani’s pro-choice views and support for civil unions turn off many, while Mitt Romney’s Mormonism continues to be a concern to some. I’d guess 10 percent of the Christian conservative base.
On Wednesday, though, the attention was on Giuliani — or more specifically the endorsement of Giuliani by televangelist Pat Robertson, founder of the Christian Coalition, the Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN) and Regent University.
It’s debatable whether Robertson’s endorsement will have much impact. Frankly, the earlier endorsement of Romney by Bob Jones III, chancellor of the South Carolina university his grandfather founded, had more impact. If the base’s acceptance problem is a candidate’s faith, the endorsement of an influential figure on the religious Right could calm doubts. But their policy differences with Giuliani and concerns about his personal life are not likely to be erased by Robertson.
Romney, of course, sought to stoke those flames. “I don’t think the Republican party will choose a pro-choice, pro-gay civil union candidate to lead our party,” he said. “I think in order to win the White House we have to bring together the coalition of conservatives that won the White House for Ronald Reagan and George Herbert Walker Bush and George W. Bush and that is social, economic, and foreign policy conservatives. And that is why I think that others that are running in this race, myself included, have a better shot of winning the White House.”
Giuliani has other potential problems brewing, too. The New York Times reports today that U.S. prosecutors in Winchester, N.Y., are seeking an indictment against Rudy’s police commissioner, Bernard B. Kerik, on charges that include tax fraud, corruption and conspiracy. Giuliani was Kerik’s patron and even recommended him to President Bush to head Homeland Security.
Questions are beginning to be raised, too, about the client list of Guiliani Partners, a consulting firm he founded.
Robertson’s endorsement may sway a few. But the key test now is electability. Giuliani can’t stand any hits on his ability to manage his public or private life. My gut, still, is that Christian conservatives overcome their concerns about Romney’s Mormonism — and he wins the nomination.
