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March 2008
Driving Miss Hillary
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
A parade of Democratic superdelegates has begun to form with the sole purpose of Driving Miss Hillary to someplace in the country — anywhere she wants to go, so long as it’s not Pennsylvania or Ohio or any other state holding a presidential primary.
U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota is expected today to join Pennsylvania’s Bob Casey and Vermont’s Patrick Leahy in pressuring Miss Hillary to hang it up. Party Chairman Howard Dean expressed surprise that Leahy had gone so far as to invite Miss Hillary out of the race. “Having run for president myself,” said Dean, “nobody tells you when to get in, and nobody tells you when to get out. That’s about the most personal decision you can make after all the time and effort you put into it.”
In Indiana, a May 6 primary state, Miss Hillary rejected the advice Leahy and others are giving. “I thought we of all people knew how important it was to give everyone a chance to have their voices heard and their votes counted,” she said.
What she fails to understand, of course, is that the “count every vote” and “every vote counts” arguments are, like Voter ID arguments, not intended for intra-party affairs. Those are weapons to be used only against Republicans. Oh, Miss Hillary, were you a bit more devious and savvy politically, you’d well understand these rules.
Despite the parade of superdelegates, she actually has more commitments from that group. Barack Obama has 217; Clinton has 250, without counting those from Michigan and Florida.
Democrats are panicky because the Rasmussen tracking poll covering Wednesday through Saturday puts John McCain up 3 points, 47-44, over Obama and up 10 points, 50-40, over Clinton.
Howard Dean wants the superdelegates to commit one way or another by July 1st to avoid going to Denver, site of the August convention, with knives drawn.
Neither Clinton nor Obama would be my first choice. And, admittedly, I’m enjoying watching the delegate-selection process ensnare Democrats in a trap of their own making. But still…
It is presumptuous of all party officials to insist that Clinton drop out. This is it for her. Now or never. The minute she drops out she’s spoiled goods, packaged up with Bill and carted off to the landfill to await the evening sweep of the bulldozer.
She has, as Dean noted, earned the right to carry on as long as she sees fit. And that’s sincere, whether the brawl benefits McCain’s chances or not. If McCain doesn’t blow it, he can beat either Clinton or Obama — whether the nominee is chosen by throwing Miss Hillary under the bus or by letting every vote count.
Games-playing gets in the way of lawmaking
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
They’re doing it again.
They are doing it again.
Get ‘em out of town — and if need be out of office.
Republicans in Atlanta are behaving just like Democrats in Congress — playing silly, pointless games in an effort to gain political advantage. Congress, for example, repeatedly sends President Bush legislation to hugely expand the federal arm of Georgia’s PeachCare program, knowing he’ll veto it. So they extend it a few months and, when it’s deemed most advantageous to Democrats, they pass it again.
It’s a game, a silly, pointless game that undermines public confidence in the institution and in the capacity of the two parties to govern on even a rudimentary level.
The Georgia General Assembly has four legislative days left. By Friday, it’ll all be over.
Within the week, we’ll know. This session will either have defined the difference it makes that Republicans are in power. Or it will be a vivid reminder of the pettiness that the public so despises about Congress. A week before the end, either outcome is possible.
Major issues remain unresolved — and in danger of meltdown. Meaningful tax cuts. Education reform. Efforts to ease Georgia’s archaic system of regulating competition in the health care industry. An invitation to vote yourself a regional transportation tax.
Georgia has a serious leadership problem. The relationship between Gov. Sonny Perdue and House Speaker Glenn Richardson seems now unlikely to improve until one or both leave office.
Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle doesn’t help. He has the ability ordinarily seen only in parents and spouses to yank Richardson’s chain to provoke an immediate reaction — and it’s exceedingly difficult to discern the intended purpose beyond familial goading. It is so pointless or to such small points that it’s impossible to imagine it can be satisfying, either personally or politically.
There’s inherent tension between the House, Senate and executive branch. That’s healthy, especially in a one-party state. But the institutional tension that arises from the desirable effort to keep the other from gaining extra-constitutional advantage is only rarely the primary issue. The governor’s style contributes to the dysfunction. It is to encourage the legislative branch to “work its will” until he decides — as with tax relief — that it’s gone too far. By then, though, it’s often too late.
Egos are invested. Either the House or Senate has taken ownership of a particular approach. The House wants to essentially end the “birthday tax” on cars, trucks and motorcycles, for example, while the Senate wants to cut income tax rates by 10 percent over five years. The governor wants token relief, fearing that revenue growth will be insufficient to meet the state’s needs as he sees them.
It’s a wonderful debate — but it’s not happening in a policy sense. And can’t. Too little time. Too many oversize egos.
They could blow this. They could leave town next week having done nothing meaningful. On taxes, they’d ideally grant significant relief and also cap state spending, as the House proposed for city and county governments.
In the next week, this could still emerge as an enormously productive session — especially on education. Four bills, if approved, would be a milestone achievement in the direction of choice for parents and for local systems. Those are House Bill 1209 from the governor, HB 1133 from David Casas (R-Lilburn), HB 881 from Jan Jones (R-Alpharetta) and Senate Bill 458 from Eric Johnson (R-Savannah).
Opening the health care industry, however slightly, to competition will be a major achievement, too. And incentives to promote high-deductible insurance policies coupled with health savings accounts is an important breakthrough. Neither is yet passed.
The encouraging thing for conservatives is that in many ways the new guys are charting a different — a desirably different — course.
But the insufferable egos and pointless games are maddening. Get over it. Do things that matter.
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Dads, Gold Domers, vive la France
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Thinking Right’s weekend free-for-all. Pick a topic:
Rite Aid pharmacy rolls out over-the-counter paternity tests at its 4,300 stores in 30 states. The paternity test costs $29 and comes with a $119 lab processing fee. Any male suspect should be legally required to submit to testing.
If the General Assembly leaves town this year having passed Senate Bill 458 and House Bills 881 and 1133 —- all of which promote education reform in the direction of parental choice —- and if it passes a proposed constitutional amendment to provide meaningful tax relief, this will have been a heck of a year under the Gold Dome. Both represent big-league movement in the right direction.
Who’d have thought it? France is expected to announce that it will double, to 1,000, its commitment of troops to Afghanistan. “We cannot afford to lose Afghanistan,” President Nicholas Sarkozy told the British Parliament. “Whatever the cost, whatever the expense, we cannot afford it.” I could warm to this guy. Of course, he could have included Iraq, too.
The saga of former legislator Ron Sailor should be a reminder to Republicans to spend their every waking hour promoting transparency and open government. He’s a Democrat, but Republicans are in charge. The vision of government that most conservatives hold requires a “partnership” with business —- business performing most nonjudicial functions now in the public sector. That requires openness, accountability, standards and a fire wall between the decision-makers and the companies performing the service. It should never be easy for the weak to be corrupted.
The U.S. Supreme Court got it right in telling Texas it could ignore President Bush and an international court. Both tried to instruct Texas to grant a new hearing for a Mexican now on death row for killing two teenagers 15 years ago. Local police prevented Jose Ernesto Medellin from consulting with Mexican diplomats. Under the Constitution the president executes laws but can’t make them, wrote Chief Justice John Roberts.
Good for Chelsea Clinton. Asked a question related to Monica Lewinsky, she gave a “none of your business” response. That’s what her father should have done to the “boxers or briefs?” question —- and the appropriate response by every public figure to personal questions. Rebuild that wall.
The Consumer Federation of America gets reams of free publicity for its Big Oil is Bad message by predicting gas will be 75 cents a gallon higher before Memorial Day. The group could just as accurately predict where the stock market will be by Memorial Day.
Let’s see. Should I believe today in global warming or, as the headline declares, that “Morale at CDC shows healthy improvement.” Hmmm. Global warming. It’s more likely.
Quote of the Week, from Rick White, a spokesman for the Atlanta Housing Authority, in response to efforts to block AHA from redeveloping housing projects: “The housing projects have served their purpose, and as a public policy matter public housing is the wrong social design. Today the housing projects only serve to isolate families from mainstream America.” Yes! Poor people need to live where others form two-parent families and get up and go to work or school every day.
Truth in government is here. State Department of Transportation Commissioner Gena Abraham said her department has money to work on 270 projects a year, and 1,470 are listed as “active,” with more than 9,000 planned. Georgians desperate for road improvements shouldn’t be led to believe something’s happening when it’s not.
Former state Rep. Kil Townsend of Atlanta, who died Sunday at 89, was a man of ideas — consolidating many of Georgia’s 159 counties was one of them —- who tried relentlessly to improve government. I wish he could have served in the majority. Former GOP executive director Jay Morgan said he told his wife a few months ago that he hoped he looked “as good as Kil when I’m his age, but my wife said I don’t look that good now.” Added Morgan: “God rest the soul of the happy contrarian.”
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Thinking Wright
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
No surprise here, but the commentary on America offered by Barack Obama’s minister of 20 years, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr., continues to bedevil Obama’s candidacy.
Campaigning in Greensboro, N.C., Wednesday, Obama returned to the Wright debacle to insist that people are paying too much attention to a few “stupid” comments. “This is somebody that was preaching three sermons at least a week for 30 years and it got boiled down…into a half-minute sound clip and just played it over and over and over again, partly because it spoke to some of the racial divisions we have in this country.”
Hillary Clinton knows what the rest of us do. Wright’s dissing of his country in the pulpit offended the values of a majority of Americans — and it’s not going away. She stated Tuesday what should be obvious to the rest of us. “I think that given all we have heard and seen, he would not have been my pastor,” she said, weighing in directly for the first time. She puts her finger on the point that it’s hard to get past: Sure, we’ve all been in the presence of people who say nutty things, including some who aren’t relatives. But 20 years?
Wright is doing his part, such as he can, to help the controversy die down, for the time being at least. He’s canceling plans to preach at a number of churches and to make other public appearances.
Democrats, recognizing the potential fallout (loss of the White House) are desperate to get the Obama-Hillary competition over quickly. Some 28 percent of Clinton supporters say they would vote for John McCain if Obama is the nominee, while 19 percent of Obama supporters say they would choose McCain if she is the nominee, according to analysis of Gallup tracking polls.
The pressure’s being put on Hillary to drop out, possibly in return for a promise to be chosen as Senate Majority Leader next year. Some Democrats are also suggesting that the superdelegates get together after the last primary in June to anoint a nominee prior to the convention in August.
Hillary should not give in to the pressure — and not because the on-going dispute works to McCain’s favor. One of the two nominees, either the Democrat or the Republican, will be President next year. McCain is my first choice but Hillary would be my second, admittedly with a huge gap between choice one and two.
Her domestic policies will drive me nuts, but I’m far from ready to turn national security over to a an inexperienced senator who, given absolute free choice, picked Jeremiah Wright.
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Do you count on Social Security?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The warnings continue from the trustees of Social Security and Medicare. Both are headed toward insolvency. No surprise. It’s an annual assessment and Congress has chosen to do nothing to fix the problem, despite the looming retirement of 78 million baby boomers.
Trustees reported Tuesday that Medicare will pay out more this year than the feds collect in payroll taxes; the same will happen to Social Security in 2017. By 2019, Medicare will deplete its so-called “trust funds” and the same will happen to Social Security in 2041.
Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson predicts a train wreck. “Without change, rising costs will drive government spending to unprecedented levels,” he said, “consume nearly all projected federal reserves and threaten America’s future prosperity.”
President Bush certainly did his part. He vowed to make Social Security overhaul a top priority of his second term and did propose retirement savings accounts, which would have allowed the young to sock away a portion of their payroll taxes into a fund they could own and pass along to their heirs. Democrats in Congress would have no part of that — and they’re reinforced in their opposition by those who see the stock market as a frightening place associated with the dreaded “risk.”
As one of those 78 million baby boomers, I don’t expect Social Security to be a major factor in my retirement years. It was not in the planning for retirement, largely because Congress can change benefits or raise the retirement age at any time it chooses. Or, just as bad, it will raise benefits not because the elderly population is the neediest, but because it votes. The dependence on government and on politicians that is the basis of Social Security has long caused me to look for an alternative.
The question of the day is how much Social Security factors into your retirement planning and whether, given the choice, you’d opt out?
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Cut to the chase with meaningful tax remedies
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Lots of politicians’ jokes about tax cuts go over my head.
Standing on the marble floor between his office and the governor’s, Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle responded to a question about whether the governor agreed with the state Senate proposal to cut individual income taxes by 10 percent over five years. Sure, he said, the governor wanted to do away with the personal income tax altogether.
After a brief moment, the gathered crowd —- including senators lined up on the stairs behind him —- laughed.
I was looking down taking notes —- and missed any facial clues the lieutenant governor provided.
I didn’t get the joke.
It is perfectly reasonable —- supportable, too —- to argue that the state income tax should be eliminated altogether in favor of a consumption-based tax. It would be a big hit on revenue. The state’s individual income tax is expected to generate $9.5 billion next year; the corporate income tax, about $1.04 billion. The proposed state budget for next year is $21.4 billion, up from this year’s $20.5 billion.
A shift would have to be done gradually, just as Cagle and senators are proposing. Their plan would be a 10 percent reduction spread over five years, from a top rate of 6 percent to 5.4. In the first year, Georgians who pay income taxes would save about $215 million. The full reduction would save them $1.2 billion, Cagle said.
Sound tax policy would reward, and therefore encourage, work. On that point, the Senate is right. Coming eight legislative days before the end of the session, it’s only remotely likely that even if the Legislature dropped all other business, the House, Senate and governor could have the tax-policy debate that conflicting proposals warrant. House leaders say they had no clue, at any level, that the Senate had an alternative proposal before the day of the news conference.
Without question, taxes should be cut. As Senate President Pro Tem Eric Johnson (R-Savannah) and others noted, paraphrasing Ronald Reagan, “Government has a spending problem, not a taxing problem.” Said Johnson: “There is always a demand for more government spending. There is rarely a need.”
The questions are, how much, and what are fiscal conservatives attempting to achieve with the cuts?
The Senate proposal has the most obvious tax-policy merit. It encourages work and therefore personal and family responsibility.
The House proposal to reduce the ad valorem taxes on personal vehicles —- cars, trucks and motorcycles —- to $10 appeals in two respects. One is that, minus the bothersome $10 that keeps it from being a clean tax elimination, it gives relief to 93 percent of the households in Georgia. And it is meaningful: $672 million after two years.
The governor’s campaign promise to end the income tax on retirement income, it could be argued, is attractive as policy because it encourages a population to relocate to Georgia that doesn’t need jobs and that will, with its spending, create jobs in communities that need them. That targeted group would be spared $142 million with the exemption.
The governor proposes, too, to eliminate the quarter-mill in local property taxes that the state collects in all 159 counties —- but it’s not clean tax policy, either, because it holds open the option that the state can resume collections. The sum is about $90 million.
The winner? That’s the point of the debate nobody’s having —- and can’t in a few legislative days at the tail end of a session. And besides there’s real doubt that with the egos involved a productive policy debate is even possible.
The real role here for a leader would be to offer a vision of what fiscal conservatives are trying to do with government, a vision that would help to define the appropriate tax policy. What they all do agree on is that taxes should be cut.
They’re right, too. So do it. Don’t leave town without delivering meaningful tax cuts.
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Defend Taiwan? Israel? Other nations?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Taiwan, a nation that America once promised to defend and now checks to keep fit from provoking mainland China or declaring its independence, held presidential elections over the weekend. The opposition party, led by Ma Ying-jeou, pronounced Ma ING-gee-oh, won decisively.
“Taiwan is a beacon of democracy to Asia and the world,” said President George W. Bush in congratulating Ma.”Taiwan has demonstrated the strength and vitality of its democracy.”
“It falls to Taiwan and Beijing to build the essential foundations for peace and stability by pursuing dialogue through all available means and refraining from unilateral steps that would alter the cross-Strait situation,” said Bush. “I believe the election provides a fresh opportunity for both sides to reach out and engage one another in peacefully resolving their differences.
The maintenance of peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait and the welfare of the people on Taiwan remain of profound importance to the United States. We will continue to maintain close unofficial ties with the people on Taiwan through the American Institute in Taiwan in accordance with our long standing one China policy, our three Joint Communiques with the People’s Republic of China, and the Taiwan Relations Act.”
Ma, who has a doctorate from Harvard and whose two daughters live in the U.S. has a difficult task in balancing relations with China. Ma wants to work with China to reduce the risk of an accidental war, with an eventual agreement to end hostilities across the Taiwan Strait.
Negotiations with mainland China, he said Sunday, will be handled through two semiofficial foundations set up in the early 1990s. Using them is like shaking hands with gloves, he said. “If you wear a white glove, it is still courteous, but it is not your actual flesh.”
Most interesting is his suggestion that China , which regards Taiwan as a breakaway province, and Taiwan, which regards itself as the Republic of China and a a sovereign nation, can find a solution that permits each to maintain a “mutual nondenial” of the other’s claim.
The pending change of governments in Taiwan and the efforts America exerts to prevent Taiwan from provoking China — Red China, as we used to call it — prompts the question: Which nations, if any, should the United States be willing to risk war to defend?
Taiwan? Once yes, now most likely not. Israel? For me, absolutely. Japan, yes. Beyond that, Great Britain, Australia, and a threat to any nation in North or South America that comes from outside the hemisphere. Europe? Probably not.
What nations would you be willing to defend at the risk of war?
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Obama’s awakening comes too late, and it slights America
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Liberal apologists who grasp the devastating impact the Rev. Jeremiah Wright has on Barack Obama’s chances of being elected president of the United States this year join the candidate in explanation and excuses. Sorry. No cigar.
About some things most Americans have no sense of humor. The anti-American rhetoric of Obama’s preacher ranks high among them. Sure, no member of the congregation is responsible for the loopy, inflammatory or racist rhetoric of the man in the pulpit. But 20 years? You sit there for 20 years with your children, and just now, when the world sees documentary evidence of his extremism, do you condemn “the statements of Rev. Wright that have caused such controversy.”
But of course. Absolutely. Those particular words have probably killed his chances of being elected president of the United States this year. Condemning them now, while necessary, is a waterboarded declaration.
That’s not to say the sentiment’s not genuine. Public reaction may very well have informed him, for the first time, that the sort of recreational anti-Americanism that ordinarily goes unchallenged when it emanates from “this nation’s original sin of slavery” is deeply offensive to the Middle America that sees an entirely different America.
This has been a major sticking point with the left for decades now. It’s that pervasive view that America is evil, that its institutions are corrupt and that unless constrained by international laws, codes, treaties and mores, we will pillage and destroy under the guise of liberty and defile the world’s nest to satisfy our lust for oil and greed for consumables.
So it is that the Constitution becomes a reference document to be considered in the context of the laws of other nations. So it is that the Kyoto treaty becomes the document needed to keep us from contributing an “unfair” share of the world’s greenhouse gases. So it is that international opinion should define when and how America acts in its national security interests.
And when we don’t heel to the policies advocated by the left we, in their view, invite disaster — 9/11, for example. The American left in the black community adds the additional grievance of “this nation’s original sin” as moral justification for rhetoric such as that uttered by Wright, rhetoric said to be standard fare in the pulpits of some black churches.
If it is, it’s a corrosive invitation to see America as a vile and irredeemable society unworthy of engagement.
Obama cites his own journey as evidence that Wright’s view is wrong. “I will never forget that in no other country on Earth is my story even possible.” Wright’s “profound mistake” was to speak “as if our society was static, as if no progress has been made.” But, said Obama on Tuesday, “what we know — what we have seen — is that America can change.”
While that’s undeniably so, that optimism contrasts with the rhetoric most often heard where race and liberalism converge. Even his wife, Michelle, a woman who has enjoyed the richness and privilege accorded the elite in America, says now that “for the first time in my adult lifetime, I am really proud of my country.” The first time? Stunning.
Obama asserted the obvious, too, that the world is not static; societies move. Yet his Tuesday speech was yesterday’s liberalism earnestly and eloquently presented as a call for a move beyond race. It was a rehash of arguments aired repeatedly and debated fully for decades in defense of programs to enact or preserve racial preferences in hiring, admissions and contracting, for example, and to pour more public money into failed approaches to education. And, of course, it comes with the requisite trashing of the greedy corporations that parade through neighborhoods whimsically shuttering mills and sending the jobs overseas “for nothing more than a profit.”
He sees a nation, too, that fills emergency rooms with the sick and unprotected because they “don’t have the power to overcome the special interests in Washington.”
Who could love that America?
But that is not the one most Americans see and know.
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Excuses, a new mom, troop tactics
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
State Rep. Ron Sailor Jr. (D-Decatur) has the second-best excuse ever for missing 91 percent of recorded votes in this year’s legislative session. First best: “I was dead.” Second best: “I was engaged in a federal effort to catch other corrupt officials.” A minister, Sailor helped people he thought were drug dealers launder money through a phony church.
How does a conservative or Republican know he/she is on the wrong track? The wrong people love what you’re doing. U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings elicits this reaction from the president of the National Education Association teachers union to her proposal to relax No Child Left Behind provisions in some states, possibly including Georgia, so that fewer schools are designated as failing: “This is something good, something we’ve been advocating.” NCLB is toast anyway if Democrats control Congress and the White House next year.
Actress Halle Berry and male model Gabriel Aubry have a daughter, her first child. The two don’t plan to marry, but she wants you to know that they feel fully committed to each other. Semi-fully, anyway. Playing a mother in her latest movie helped convince her to be one.
Thank Georgia Supreme Court justices Harold Melton, Harris Hines, George H. Carley and Hugh P. Thompson for failing to cave in to candlelight-vigil justice in the case of Troy Anthony Davis, murderer of Savannah police officer Mark Allen MacPhail in 1989. Recanted testimony that is suspect or consists of “a carefully worded and vague account that can be represented as stating one thing when it might very well state the opposite” (a phrase from the majority opinion) is no reason to question his original conviction —- despite the PR effort to get him a new trial.
Headline: “Migrants fear changes in Georgia.” Would that be legal immigrants or illegal? —- ‘cause they’re different.
Some Decatur school board members are “threatening” to withdraw a request to become a charter school system if the General Assembly passes House Bill 881, which would set up a state alternative for granting charters and would establish that the money follows the child. What’s with these low-level board members making demands on the state? The Grady board did it, too, insisting that they’d hold their breath until the state agreed to a list of demands. If the Decatur board decides charter status is not the route to go, give it up. No hard feelings. Do it.
Gwinnett expands its tax-giveaway program to business. Giveaways ought to be illegal anywhere in metro Atlanta. Growth is coming. State and local governments should be giving business, and the rest of us, fair treatment, good service and a qualified work force. Incentivize development in the boondocks, where it otherwise won’t go.
Relocating the Georgia Department of Corrections to the old Tift College campus on I-75 in Forsyth is a smart move, even if the initial cost to prepare the campus is $50 million. It helps traffic congestion in Atlanta and it spreads growth around the state. Move one major department to Augusta, Macon, Savannah and Columbus, one small department to Albany, Rome, Valdosta and the Statesboro-Dublin area. Leave storefront operations near the Capitol, to be immediately available to the governor and General Assembly. A state department could save or grow lots of cities. No need, really, for them to be here.
DeKalb CEO Vernon Jones picked up serious primary opposition this week: former state Rep. Jim Martin of Atlanta. Good guy, but he starts off sounding just like national Democrats: “I believe we should respect our troops by using them more effectively and taking better care of them when they come home.” Democrats have decided a version of that line is the safe way to frame their opposition on Iraq.
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Would you hire this man?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
One of two finalists for the job of leading efforts to salvage the Clayton County school system’s accreditation is apparently demanding a $275,000 salary, $2 million to hire consultants, 24-hour security and a Lincoln Town Car with a driver.
The report comes from an official who attended one of the interviews with John W. Thompson. He is also asking for additional money for travel and for housing assistance, said the official.
“I think those benefits are absolutely ludicrous,” said the head of the Metro Association of Classroom Educators, John Trotter, “but desperate school boards like Clayton County will offer up all the taxpayers’ money to try and find a savior.” Trotter, whose organization has done its share to disrupt Clayton schools, did not participate in the interviews, but conveys a report from one who did.
The second candidate brought forth by a search firm, Santiago V. Wood, said he is asking for $185,000 plus moving expenses and a one-time $2,200 housing fee — eminently reasonable requests. He also wants an 18- to 24-month contract, which the board should be willing to grant.
Wood’s request isn’t exorbitant, but a spokesman for the search firm says Thompson’s isn’t either. “These guys are coming into a district that is not well organized, filled with confrontation, losing accreditation, personnel issues and board issues,” said Dick Greene. “Right now, a package of $325,000 including salary and benefits is not unusual at all.”
Maybe. But a superintendent who insisted on a security guard and a specific vehicle with driver is one who’d have to walk to town across the Chattahoochee River before I’d hire him.
I still think the problem in Clayton County is the voters of Clayton County. They make bad choices, initially on the basis of race. They elected a sheriff who’s been nothing but trouble. They threw out a veteran district attorney widely respected for his competence, apparently on the basis of skin color, to choose a black woman. And, of course, the school board has been a disaster zone for years.
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Better not abandon Hillary just yet
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Barack Obama sufficiently shored up his effort to win the Democratic nomination with Tuesday’s speech that attempted to explain the incendiary rhetoric of his preacher, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. But it’s getting increasingly difficult to see him as the Democrat who can win the presidency this year. The speech wasn’t that good.
While more eloquent than most, it was a rehash of arguments that have been aired and debated for decades in defense of programs to enact or preserve racial preferences in hiring, admissions and contracting, and to pour more public money into the same failed approaches to schools. In short, it was liberalism earnestly presented as a dialogue on race.
But when the dancing was done, there was still Jeremiah Wright’s rhetoric — and the fact that, regardless of whether Obama was present in the congregation on any given Sunday, the minister’s extremism could not have been missed by any person exposed to the larger community. And yet, Obama never walked away. His speech Tuesday doesn’t really explain his inaction — or, at least, the inaction of a person who aspired to lead all of America.
So this fall we will have two Democratic candidates — and maybe three or more. One will be Obama, the agent of change who will gussy up liberalism and attempt to pass it off as something virginal and virtuous. And there’ll be Michelle Obama — “For the first time in my adult lifetime, I am really proud of my country…” And there’ll be Wright. And all that footage of rhetorical extremism.
The Democrats’ superdelegates had best not squeeze Hillary out too early. Obama may have talked his way through to the Democratic nomination — but one speech barely begins to repair the damage Obama’s association with Wright has caused.
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The real need? Healthy competition
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Renee Unterman’s voice is between disgust and anger. People in Gwinnett County are dying trying to get through Spaghetti Junction, she says.
“This has been going on for 10 years,” says the Republican state senator from Buford, “and this is why I am so adamantly opposed” to a “certificate of need” law in Georgia that makes her county the largest in the country without its own open heart surgery center.
“I have seen people die on the highway” trying to make their way through traffic congestion to reach either St. Joseph in Sandy Springs or Piedmont in Atlanta, she says.
Gwinnett Medical Center has applied yet again for the state’s permission to start an open heart surgery program in Lawrenceville. A decision should come within weeks.
The Georgia General Assembly, meanwhile, is deeply mired in debate about how to ease this archaic regulatory system —- prompted most immediately by an effort by Cancer Treatment Centers of America to build a facility near Atlanta’s airport to serve cancer patients who would fly in from around the Southeast.
Resolution appeared close. But the governor, lieutenant governor and House speaker are slipping into their test-of-manhood phase —- the car tax, spending, Sunday beer sales —- so all forecasts are too perishable to publish.
Whatever the immediate future on Gwinnett’s application and on certificate of need law revision, it is a relic that protects monopolies and tempts the creation of “an illegal cartel among the hospitals,” a phrase drawn from an 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision in 1991 written by then-Chief Judge Gerald B. Tjoflat. That case involved a Federal Trade Commission objection to an effort by University Health Inc. in Augusta to acquire smaller hospitals.
“The FTC demonstrated that Georgia’s certificate of need law —- which regulates the addition of hospital services based on the need of the public —- is a substantial barrier to entry by new competitors and to expansion by existing ones …” wrote Judge Tjoflat. “Such barriers make concentrated markets more threatening since there is little chance that other firms (new or old) would be able, in the face of anti-competitive practices, to spur competition.” The CON therefore, would “facilitate an illegal cartel among the hospitals.”
But the decision that Republicans should read before they take ownership of the regulatory system they inherited —- something they can do if they’re not careful —- is a dissenting opinion by Presiding Judge Alan Blackburn of the Georgia Court of Appeals in cases arising from efforts in Cobb and Gwinnett to offer open heart surgery services.
The opinion in Hospital Authority of Gwinnett County v. State Health Planning Agency and a like dispute from Cobb was decided on Nov. 13, 1993. The majority upheld state regulators, but to free-market conservatives Blackburn’s dissent is the guide. Wrote Blackburn:
“Centralized governmental regulation of the health care industry is, to a significant degree, antithetical to our entire system of free enterprise. The notion that economic forces of supply and demand will control the quality and costs of goods and services is a concept of economic liberty that is just as basic to our system of government as the personal liberty we enjoy and so closely guard.
“A fundamental concept conflict exists between that notion of economic liberty and the notion … that more governmental regulation can increase quality of health care at lower costs. It may be that governmental regulation is part of the problem and not the cure. …”
The remainder of his opinion details the case for competition and for granting permission to both Cobb and Gwinnett to offer them.
For young conservatives interested in a career in public office, it’s worth reading, as is Judge Tjoflat’s opinion, before buying in to a regulatory system that Ronald Reagan recognized as a failure more than 20 years ago.
It’s a regulatory system that makes lawyers rich and puts the General Assembly in the position of resolving conflicts that belong in the marketplace.
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Bear Stearns at $2. Holy Toledo!
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Holy Toledo! Bear Stearns Cos., an 85-year-old financial giant with 14,000 employees, a company whose stock traded a year ago at $150 a share, sold Sunday night to rival J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., for $2 per share. On Friday it closed at $30 a share.
The buyout was arranged with the backing of the Federal Reserve, which is providing $30 billion against some of Bear Stearns’ less liquid assets, including mortgage securities that jittery investors around the world are unwilling to touch.
The alternative was bankruptcy, Many shell-shocked stockholders would have preferred that option. In January of last year, the company had a value of $20 billion. On Friday, its market value was $3.5 billion. It sold for $236.2 million, a stunning collapse for a company that survived the Depression and both world wars.
Watch the stock market today. Either the panic will spread or the quick and decisive action by the Federal Reserve could calm the jitters.
Bear Stearns stunning collapse is a reminder that the market is a powerful and unforgiving regulator. Those in Congress who rush to bail out subprime borrowers are egged on by populists who insist that greedy and “predatory” lenders trick unsophisticated borrowers into taking home mortgages. In the populists’ scenario, the greedy live high and those who are duped pay the price with high-interest mortgages that drive them into foreclosure.
Bear Stearns, which has a large mortgage business, is evidence that when lenders and borrowers get reckless, nobody’s immune — especially, in this case, the 14,000 employees who were prohibited from selling their stock as its value plummeted and who now may be out of a job.
Joking aside, it’s time for car tax break
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
I don’t get the joke. Sorry. I don’t.
“I think the people of Georgia get the joke,” said Gov. Sonny Perdue, ridiculing a proposed constitutional amendment that passed the Georgia House of Representatives 166-5 last week to virtually eliminate the property tax on personal cars, trucks and motorcycles.
It’s not a perfect plan — but it is one that offers relief to 93 percent of the households in Georgia.
It’s not perfect because a niggling $10 tax to create a state trauma network would be applied to personal and commercial vehicles. With some low-value vehicles, a $10 tax will exceed existing property taxes. The real concern, however, is that it’s not a clean break. It plants a tax that’s certain to grow. Future tax-and-spenders won’t have to clear that hurdle of public opposition to a new tax.
After the House passed the resolution, Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle found himself in the position of a player in Hasbro’s Twister, a once-popular game designed to tie players in knots. Keep in mind that this is a tax cut, one reducing government’s take by $672 million in the 2011 fiscal year. No Republican and only five Democrats — three from the Atlanta area and two from Athens — voted against it.
Cagle’s twist started with the apparent objection that relief is needlessly delayed because it “doesn’t provide the full amount of relief for two years.” He’s for it, right? “Why are we waiting two years to cut taxes instead of having the courage to do it right now?” He’s for it, right?
Wrong. He opposes, or seems to, this particular method of allowing Georgians to keep $672 million of their earnings.
He’s interested, he said, in coming up with a “broad economic stimulus plan that will create jobs today.” The name Cagle and “economic stimulus” first appeared in this newspaper on Friday, March 14. We are now nine working days away from the end of the session.
Cagle did something similar last year in informing House leaders after they had passed a budget that the Senate would not agree to pork. The timing of the declaration touched off the three-way disaster that last year’s session became for Republicans.
This tax proposal, or a variant of it, has been in play for more than a year. Alternatives, specific or philosophical, could have been aired at any stage. “The first word that I ever heard that he [Cagle] had an economic stimulus idea was yesterday,” said House President Pro Tem Mark Burkhalter (R-Alpharetta), who first proposed the “birthday tax” relief.
Cagle’s declaration coincided with Perdue’s “get the joke” assertion. Georgians “want infrastructure, they want education and they want the government to work for them,” he said. He worries that the combination of tax cuts, including one he proposed that will amount to about $90 million, will total about $750 million, leaving the state with too little spending money.
Burkhalter noted that taxes collected from the $3.6 billion that will come to Georgia as a result of the federal economic stimulus package, estimated to be $240 million, plus the $90 million represented by Perdue’s effort to repeal a quarter-mill the state collects in local property taxes, would fund the first full year of the House’s proposed tax relief.
He pointed out, too, that as a state senator, Perdue voted to remove the sales tax from groceries, which at the time amounted to 5 percent of the state budget. The car tax relief is about half that, he said, and furthermore the state has a surplus of $1.6 billion. “We are still fiscally very sound. … We will still grow 4.5 percent in the ‘09 budget. …”
While there’s a legitimate debate to be had about how much of our money government “needs,” it’s clear that, like the Democrats before them, Republicans will find a worthy need for every dollar available. They don’t have the courage to accept for themselves the cap on spending that many legislators would impose as spending discipline on local governments. The only real option then is to fund essential needs — and then return the excess collections.
The line of money-seekers is endless when there’s money on the table. To force priorities, limit collections. The House of Representatives, with only five dissenting votes, did that this week. No joke.
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Taxes, insurance, honorable officials
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Thinking Right’s weekend free-for-all. Pick a topic:
• Taxpayer champions? They don’t get any better than U.S. Sens. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma and Jim DeMint of South Carolina. Despite alienating colleagues in both parties, the two have persisted in their campaign to end pork-barrel politics — the so-called earmarks that got us the Bridge to Nowhere. All three presidential candidates have come around. Maybe. Clinton and Obama have signed on to a one-year moratorium, though they were defenders until recently.
• France’s last World War I veteran, Lazare Ponticelli, died this week at 110. It should be noted that only one World War II veteran remains in the Georgia General Assembly, the able and hardworking John P. Yates of Griffin. A first-class guy, he chairs the Defense and Veterans Affairs Committee.
• Another class act who served our nation in World War II, former Atlanta resident and Delta pilot Joseph H. Moss, made the largest individual donation ever to Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, $25 million. His interest started with a story he read in the AJC about a little Mexican boy who needed a kidney transplant — a transplant he helped finance.
• Insurance Commissioner John Oxendine is outraged that the General Assembly has approved legislation allowing auto insurance companies to raise rates on everything except required minimum coverage without his approval. While he understandably objects to the loss of power to be the rate czar, he should cheer the state’s willingness to let the free market work. It’s the right policy. When consumers have access to information — and they do — competition works.
• The General Assembly should not vote out a proposed regional transportation sales tax that allows voters in one county to impose a tax on a neighboring county whose voters reject it. Too, voters should know the specific projects their money will be spent on when they go to the polls.
• Things just happen. Bishop Thomas W. Weeks explains how his wife, the Rev. Juanita Bynum, came to be on the ground with a man’s foot making rapid contact with her body: “I did push her and subsequently other things took place.” Lesson learned? “No matter how much you feel you are right in a push, it’s unjust according to the law.” Interpreter, please. Is that the same as saying that a technicality in the darn law won’t let you smack ‘em when they deserve it?
• Hillary Clinton is of two views about Barack Obama. One is that he’s inexperienced, naive, all talk and unworthy of being president. The other is that he’s an inspired choice to be VP.
• Words of regret for all in public office who fritter away their opportunities to make a difference: “I look at my time as governor with a sense of what might have been,” said Eliot Spitzer in resigning as governor of New York.
• The military commander for the Middle East, Adm. William J. Fallon, announced his resignation — and properly so — after a magazine article portrayed him as opposed to the commander in chief’s policy on Iran. Esquire described him as the lone voice against military action to stop Iran’s nuclear program. Retired admirals and generals can disagree publicly on possible military action. Fallon chose the honorable course. He’s retiring March 31. As with the U.S. attorneys, the president’s critics in and out of Congress find scandal where none exists in personnel changes.
• House Democrats rebound — joining in bipartisan agreement to reduce the yearly tax on cars, trucks and motorcycles used as personal vehicles to $10, a sum to be spent on a statewide trauma network. The vote was 166-5. The proposed constitutional amendment goes now to the Senate and, with its approval, to voters. More good news: A bill imposing a $1 tax on telephone and wireless service died this week. I hate these hidden taxes disguised as “fees.” Quit.
• The Georgia Senate passed a resolution to name the I-95/I-16 interchange near Savannah in honor of Justice Clarence Thomas. Insufficient. Name the state’s judicial building for him. Or Thomas County.
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Lessons of Spitzer’s fall
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
No question that New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s fall from power — he announced Wednesday that he’ll step down as governor on Monday — feeds the nation’s cynicism about politicians.
On so many fronts, he was a lie. Though his father, Bernard Spitzer, is believed to have real estate holdings that give him a worth of $500 million, Eliot cultivated the image of the frugal guy who drove a minivan. His 2006 income was $1.9 million, the majority of it from rents on property his family owns. He lives in a luxury apartment on Fifth Avenue owned by his father.
“He was certainly not free with the dollars,” said a consultant who worked on his first two campaigns. “He was very, very careful. This is not the kind of guy who would take $50,000 out of his own bank account one weekend and blow it in Atlantic City.”
Maybe not in a weekend, but the Associate Press quotes an anonymous law enforcement official as saying he may have spent $80,000 on prostitutes over several years. He paid 22-year-old Ashley Alexandra Dupre, identified as Kristen, $4,300 on the evening before Valentine’s Day.
Spitzer could certainly afford the prostitutes. But part of the lie of his life was that he bought his way into the governor’s office by hounding honest and never-indicted businessmen with accusations of wrongdoing. That style got him named Time magazine’s Crusader of the Year.
Spitzer’s toast — and properly so. Hillary loses one superdelegate but the larger question is how the Spitzer saga affects Democratic presidential politics.
Public officials like Spitzer who cultivate a particular political image — whether that is as a change agent or a holier-than-thou crusader — fall quickly when their personal conduct fails to measure up. For Barack Obama, the stakes just went up in the Chicago trial of Tony Rezko, who is accused of bribing public officials and taking kickbacks. Obama has donated some $150,000 to charity, the allegedly illegal campaign contributions Rezko directed to his 2004 Senate campaign.
Obama’s major appeal is that he represents a new kind of politics — a message that has attracted hordes of young supporters. Spitzer just lowered the cynicism bar for politicians on high horses.
You decide. What do you see as the repercussions on public attitutudes or particular politicans, if any, of Spitzer’s fall?
Would you vote for Mississippian?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
As expected, Barack Obama won Mississippi’s Democratic primary on Tuesday. But the Associated Press wire service notes that it was “one of the most racially divided of all the party’s contests this year.”
Nine of 10 blacks voted for Obama; seven of 10 whites voted for Hillary Clinton. Obama won with 59 percent to Hillary’s 39 because turnout was about 50-50 black-white. “Racial polarization was stark,” opined the AP. “Only in two other states have seven in 10 whites back Clinton, and both were in the South,” in Alabama and Arkansas.
About 40 percent of blacks said race was important in making the choice and 90 percent of those voted for Obama. About 25 percent of whites said the same thing and 90 of those voted for Clinton.
Clinton did well among both white men and women — she’s previously had trouble attracting men — while running strong among whites who are independents, college graduates or earn at least $50,000 a year.
The AP’s data came from interviews at 35 polling places across Mississippi. The sampling was done for the wire service and television networks by Edison Media Research and Mitofsky International.
Hillary, meanwhile, said she regretted remarks last week by the Democrats’ 1984 vice presidential candidate, Geraldine Ferraro, who told the Daily Breeze of Torrance, Calif. that “If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position. And if he was a woman (of any color) he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is. And the country is caught up in the concept.”
Said Hillary: “I do not agree with that.” Obama called Ferraro’s comments absurd and divisive.
Ferraro didn’t back down. “I have to tell you that what I find is offensive is that every time somebody says something about the campaign, you’re accused of being racist,” she said later on Fox.
She said she was chosen as Walter Mondale’s running mate because of gender. Had her name been “Gerard Ferraro,” she wouldn’t have been on the ticket, she said.
Whether Mississippians are more race-conscious in their decision-making is a matter of conjecture. But I have no doubt that in national politics it’s a liability to be from Mississippi, especially if you’re a white conservative.
Haley Barbour, Mississippi’s Republican governor, would be a strong contender as John McCain’s running mate but for one fact: He’s from Mississippi. Anytime anybody’s writing or talking about the state phrases like “racially divided” and “stark polarization” creep out.
Ferraro thinks a “very sexist media” prefers a man to a woman — Obama to Hillary.
The questions to be explored today: Would you vote for a conservative from Mississippi? Is the media “very sexist”? And would Obama be in this position if he were a white man or a woman of any color?
House bill offers schools valuable trade-off for crutch
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Shhh.
Listen. This is important. Pay attention now.
The retired educator, Brooks Coleman of Duluth, a state legislator who chairs the House Education Committee, is explaining one of Gov. Sonny Perdue’s proposals to give local school boards flexibility in return for accountability and agreed-upon consequences.
Listennow. Listennow. Don’t jump to conclusions too fast.
What Coleman is talking about —- lecturing about, really —- is not radical in the slightest. It is, however, one piece in a series of tiny reforms that promise to revolutionize the way government treats, and relates to, the parents of children in public schools. It more than represents change. It is change.
Shocking to know that while one of the Democratic Party’s presidential candidates is extolled for embracing change, officeholders down the line who share his party label are terrified by the prospect.
Instructor Coleman, in fact, has to reassure a beside-himself young Democrat from Lilburn, Brian W. Thomas, that the language of the bill that would give local systems freedom from many of the staffing, hiring, paying, curriculum and class-size requirements in return for agreements to produce better results in graduate rates, for example, says “may” and not “shall.” That means it’s up to local school boards what level of “risk” they wish to assume in return for freedom to run their systems generally as they see fit.
They don’t have to change a thing. If they prefer a thousand mandates, they can keep a thousand. Input this, input that. It’s entirely voluntary.
And yet, House Bill 1209 is a big deal. That’s precisely because it takes away a crutch. It takes away the excuse that it’s somebody else’s fault if a system turns out junk.
The excuse-makers will opt for the status quo. And they can. It’s may, not shall. The bold school boards and confident administrators will choose freedom and promise results because the consequences are real. Failed schools could be converted to charters, privatized or turned over to a neighboring school system to operate.
The proposed law, which passed the House 112-58, would be implemented over five years, starting with 15 of 180 systems next year.
That’s one of the promising concepts being introduced here.
Another passed the Senate last Wednesday. SB 458, authored by Senate President Pro Tem Eric Johnson of Savannah, would give vouchers to the parents of children stuck in schools that are chronically nonperforming or in systems that lose accreditation. The voucher would be for the state portion of money allocated to educate the child —- about $4,100 for a child in Clayton County, for example. “If we’re on the Titanic, let’s put the children in the lifeboats and worry about who hit the iceberg later,” he said.
The thing is: Parents should have choice. Their child shouldn’t be held hostage until a school or system gets its act together. The Senate agreed, 32-21.
A third important education bill is expected to come before the House today. State Rep. David Casas (R-Lilburn) has legislation to give a state income tax credit to individuals and corporations donating to school-choice scholarship organizations. Individuals could contribute $1,000 and couples $2,500 per year to nonprofits that give grants to public school students to attend private schools. Similar programs exist in Florida, Arizona, Pennsylvania, Iowa and Rhode Island.
And there’s House Bill 881, which is now before the Senate, that would give parents with a good charter school proposal a way around local boards that are resistant to perceived competition. It would also establish the principle that education money follows the child.
There’s a lesson here, an important one, one that should be tested and remembered, for all those who would change the way government has functioned. It is aggressive incrementalism.
Push change on a dozen fronts, always forward, always to a goal. If the steps have to be small, take them, but be persistent and aggressive in taking the small ones. Real reform may come suddenly —- but it is far more likely that it will be accomplished by a team. Aggressive incrementalism.
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Hanging mailman, here we come
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Hard to imagine that Democratic presidential politics could get any more bizarre, but party leaders are now suggesting a Florida re-vote with the primary being conducted by the U.S. Postal Service.
A mail-in primary is “actually a very good process,” said DNC Chairman Howard Dean on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” “Every voter gets a ballot in the mail. It’s comprehensive. You get to vote if you’re in Iraq or in a nursing home. It’s not a bad way to do this.”
The party is desperate, of course, to get out of the box it’s in. Hillary won Florida, and Michigan too for that matter, and has a legitimate claim to the 313 delegates. The national party withheld delegates because the two states elected to vote earlier than the national party wanted. Barack Obama chose not to have his name listed on the Michigan ballot. The choice there was either Hillary or uncommitted. Hillary won — but not by a landslide.
Who pays for a re-do, which would cost an estimated $6 million? The party, for sure, with money Dean says it needs for the fall campaign against John McCain. Republican Gov. Charlie Crist has made it plain that the state won’t bail out the Dems.
Michigan’s Democratic Sen. Carl Levin noted Sunday that “There’s some real problems” with a mail-in ballot. “Not just cost, but the security issue. How do you make sure that hundreds of thousands, perhaps a million or more ballots can be properly counted and that duplicate ballots can be avoided?”
Hanging chads, hanging mailman, here we come. Republicans really should not get too down about their prospects in November. Watching Democrats in Congress and in politics offers some reassurance that the party will over-play or misplay every advantage.
And that’s good for the country. Can anybody really imagine Barack Obama as commander in chief?
A birthday gift to rev up hopes of Republicans
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
A legislative session that for Republicans had all the makings of disaster turned suddenly last week — demonstrating once again why nobody should bet on elections that are more than a few days away.
A week ago Friday, rank-and-file House Republicans were in a deep funk about the fall elections.
Democrats in one afternoon lifted them out of it. Bloodbath averted. Obama surge neutralized.
I’d have to hogtie you to force you to sit still long enough to hear the full explanation of why Georgia House Democrats — minus seven — voted last week to deny tax relief to 93 percent of Georgians who own cars, trucks and motorcycles. But they did.
Some votes can be explained to neighbors who don’t pay much attention to the games politicians play in Atlanta and Washington. Some, including this one, can’t.
Rank-and-file Republicans were disturbed because House Speaker Glenn Richardson was still insisting he’d make them vote on a tax shift proposal — a new tax on groceries and services to generate money for property tax relief — that would have walked incumbents into a bloodbath in the primary and in the general election.
Gleeful Democrats were beside themselves at the prospect of running against Republicans who could be accused of supporting 175 new taxes. Had Richardson pushed that tax bill onto the floor, it would have been the end of his speakership.
But he didn’t.
He dropped the proposed tax on groceries and services His tax bill was morphed instead into a proposal by Speaker Pro Tem Mark Burkhalter of Alpharetta to end the “birthday tax,” the ad valorem tax that Georgians pay on their birthdays to renew their car tags. It would have saved owners of almost 7 million personal vehicles $637 million, the sum counties collected in 2007.
This is genuine tax relief. Not a swap. It is the real deal, getting Republicans back to what should have been their roots.
The proposed constitutional amendment on the floor Wednesday would also have frozen property assessments at 2008 levels and limited them to 2 percent per year for homes and 3 percent for other property.
Overall, property tax collections by local governments would be limited to new construction, plus the rate of inflation in government’s cost of goods and services. That rate would have averaged 5.05 percent over the past five years, Richardson said. The cap would not apply to revenues from other sources.
The proposed cap could have been raised by voters in a referendum. The ballot question would have to be phrased: “Shall property taxes be increased …?”
That cap was a primary reason Democrats gave for voting against a tax break for owners of 530,362 vehicles in Cobb, 586,995 in Gwinnett, 527,555 in Fulton and 436,997 in DeKalb.
Dumb. Seriously dumb. Pick any barber shop in Georgia. Walk in and explain that you didn’t oppose giving patrons a major tax break on their cars but voted against it because the proposed amendment would have limited the increase that cities and counties could impose on their homes. And, for good measure, throw in some gibberish about the state “owing” local school systems some back funding — and that’s why you voted against a tax break for almost every family in the state.
Good luck.
Four of the seven Democrats who broke ranks — Bobby Parham of Milledgeville, Alan Powell of Hartwell, Jay Shaw of Lakeland and Ellis Black of Valdosta — represent areas where Democrats have lost ground for most of the past decade. The other three were Bob Bryant of Garden City, Kevin Levitas of Atlanta and Amy Carter of Valdosta.
The proposed amendment lost 110-62, with 120 needed. One Republican, Tom Dickson of Cohutta, voted no.
Had it passed and been approved by voters in November, Georgians would have gotten $672 million in tax relief, the sum projected for the 2011 fiscal year. That’s money politicians would not have been tempted to spend.
Republicans were headed to an election-year disaster. And then came the Democrats. …
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John-o-meter, car tax, a cool kiss
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Thinking Right’s weekend free-for-all. Pick a topic:
Hillary wins Ohio and Texas. The John-o-meter registers a 43. If she wins one more small state, Atlanta Congressman John Lewis is back to 50-50. Win Pennsylvania on April 22 and Lewis re-endorses Hillary.
When Republicans are in danger of jumping off the cliff, they can always count on Democrats to save them. In one of the dumber moves of this legislative session, Democrats voted as a party against giving every Georgian who owns a car, truck or motorcycle relief from what Speaker Pro Tem Mark Burkhalter (R-Alpharetta) calls the “birthday tax.” It comes due on your birthday. Six Democrats broke ranks and voted for lower taxes: Reps. Bob Bryant of Garden City, Alan Powell of Hartwell, Bobby Parham of Milledgeville, Kevin Levitas of Atlanta, Amy Carter of Valdosta and Jay Shaw of Lakeland. One Republican, Tom Dickson of Cohutta, doesn’t get it.
Prince Harry rocks. He wanted to be “one of the lads,” an ordinary soldier pulling his weight on the front — and was.
Ever realize how many stories containing numbers are launched by some advocacy group pushing an agenda? Telling us, for example, that, based on federal taxes collected here, the war in Iraq costs Georgians between $86.5 billion and $144.1 billion is meaningless except as anti-war propaganda. The calculation is done by a group called the National Priorities Project in Northampton, Mass.
And what should that number be? Likewise, a report by the Pew Center on the States in Washington, a “private group that promotes” alternatives to jailing, finds that Georgia locks up 1.02 people per thousand, second in the country. Give us more law-abiding citizens and we’ll give you fewer lock-ups. The group also tells us that Georgia spends 50 cents on incarceration for every dollar spent on higher education. So should Georgia spend more on higher education? Don’t try to figure it out. It’s just feel-good liberalism.
Sad commentary on “community” that former Clayton County school board member Norreese Haynes lived in Cobb County for two years and nobody in Clayton knew it — and wouldn’t have but for a domestic dispute in Cobb and the accreditation disaster in Clayton. When the truth was discovered, he was voted off the board.
Think health insurance premiums are high now? Wait until Congress enacts legislation to require employers offering coverage for both mental and physical illnesses to give them parity. The bill, which passed 268-148, would mandate coverage for conditions such as jet lag and sexual dysfunction, said U.S. Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-Marietta). “Can you imagine an employer being willing to cover things like that?” Here’s the deal: On the Democrats’ watch, business is made an extension of government, mandated to provide services that liberals want but lack the public support to create in the public sector. On the Republicans’ watch, business tries to dump those costs back on government — which is how, if we’re not careful, we get to HillaryCare.
Tyson Chief Executive Richard Bond says that government mandates to produce more ethanol are the chief reason prices for his chicken, beef and pork products are expected to increase by almost $800 million this year. Grains are 40 percent of the cost of producing chicken and 80 percent of the cost of producing beef. Congress may be responsible for a dumber idea than putting corn in the gas tank, but it’s hard to know when.
Clever of the Chattanooga mayor to send a pickup load of bottled water to the Capitol in response to claims that the state line is marked incorrectly and the Tennessee River actually flows through Georgia. He described it as a “cool wet kiss of friendship.” State Sen. David Shafer (R-Duluth) accepted it in the spirit offered: “as down payment on the billions of gallons of water” to come. Aspects may be humorous, but this is a legitimate claim for Georgia to pursue.
Has John Lewis changed his endorsement yet?
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Political games people play
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Another Georgia Democratic superdelegate, party chairwoman Jane Kidd, announced this week that she’s supporting Barack Obama, the seventh of the state’s 13 superdelegates to commit to him. Hillary has three and three are keeping quiet.
That is one of the few crumbs of good news to come to the Obama campaign this week. To recap, it started going downhill Monday with jury selection in the Chicago corruption trial of Obama’s pal and former fund-raiser Tony Rezko. In a press conference, Obama suddenly appeared to be just another politician dodging questions about something messy.
And of course, there was the visit by his economic adviser, Austan Goolsbee, to the Canadian consulate in Chicago where he apparently reassured them that Obama’s rhetoric on the North American Free Trade Agreement was campaign consumption in a competitive state.
The young, attracted to Obama’s campaign by his promise of “change,” will jump ship in a heartbeat once they sense that his rhetoric is just to win and that, in reality, he’s more of the same.
Going into both the Texas and Ohio primaries, talk radio hosts, including Rush Limbaugh, urged Republicans to cross over and vote for Hillary to prolong the bloodbath. It might have worked here and there, but based on exit polls slightly more of those who crossed over voted for Obama.
I think it’s always a mistake for voters in one party to try to select the opposition. To be honest, I don’t know yet whether the stronger candidate against John McCain would be Hillary or Obama.
Young voters, for example, may turn out to be part of a powerful movement that could sweep him into office. Or if he’s revealed to be just another cog in the corrupt machine politics of Chicago, they abandon him in droves. He loses.
Hillary has high negatives, but the Clintons won’t get too far from the political mainstream, as defined by the polls. She won’t destroy herself.
McCain has it locked up. Size up the opposition. Is he better off running against Hillary or Obama? And, by the way, do you play games in the voting booth or elsewhere in politics?
John McCain is it
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Learn to love John McCain. He’s it. No surprise there. He clinched the Republican presidential nomination Tuesday, as expected, gaining the 1,191 delegates needed to sew up the nomination.
On Wednesday he’s headed to the White House for a show of support with President Bush.
The fun stuff is still on the Democratic side, but however it plays out, if McCain can avoid blowing up in public, or having a series of senior moments, you’ve got to like his chances.
Barack Obama’s taken a beating in recent days with questions about his home and the lot next door and with the revalation that while he was talking tough in Ohio on NAFTA his senior economic adviser reassured Canadian officials the rhetoric was “political positioning” for the campaign and that he wasn’t really protectionist. Suddenly, he looks like a political mortal — like the politician he is.
A big night for Hillary is good news for McCain. It means they’ll both be spending excess cash and aiming their sights at each other while he conserves cash and prepares his party for the general election campaign.
Ohio, Texas: Pick ‘em
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Several political junkies here, in anticipation of slow returns, got together late Tuesday to offer our guesses on Hillary’s percentage in Ohio and Obama’s in Texas.
The consensus: In Ohio, we have Hillary winning with 51.3. In Texas, we put Obama up 50.8. The Ohio guesses ranged from 46.1 to 54.1 for Hillary. In Texas, the guesses were from 45.9 to 52.3
Get into the game. Predict Hillary’s percentage in Ohio and Obama’s in Texas.
Obesity’s a burden our schools should not shoulder
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Fat kids. Your problem or the school’s?
No question. Your kid, your problem. You feed them. You fatten them. Parents are the problem.
The Georgia Senate on Friday passed legislation to require elementary schools to weigh children twice a year and to track body mass index, the measure of whether somebody’s fat. Aggregate information, not results for individual students, would be posted on a state education Web site. The school’s not required to notify parents of their child’s weight, though it would be made available to them upon request.
These notions are troubling —- that schools should be the place where government intervenes in childhood obesity and, furthermore, that they should be identified publicly with a condition almost entirely beyond their control. Sure the kids eat a meal at school. And, yes, they may have access to soft drink machines and possibly snacks as well. But schools are not primarily responsible for children’s caloric intake. It’s not their job description.
This particular bill, SB 506 by state Sen. Joe Carter (R-Tifton), is modest enough in its reach. Local school systems test, and the state appoints a coordinator to gather and post school data and to “coordinate physical education and fitness activities and requirements.” Systems that don’t submit data or don’t meet a state minimum in physical education instruction will be declared by the state school board to be an “unhealthy school zone.” The bill passed the Senate 37-13 and goes now to the House.
We have gone in one lifetime from a nation fighting hunger to one fighting gluttony. Obesity is no doubt a real concern. The problem here is that yet another responsibility of the family is being transferred to public education. No daddy in a child’s life? Task the schools to provide role models and to teach values. Can’t handle anger? Task the schools to teach behavior management. No self-esteem? Schools. Don’t know which fork to use? Schools. No discipline in what goes on the fork? Schools. Reading, writing and math? Sure, if you can squeeze it in.
Schools have become the absent fathers and the never-formed families.
If one assumes that children reach school age completely uncivilized, never exposed to discipline or boundaries and unable to resist all temptation —- food, sex, aggression, media distractions —- then the logical place to begin the civilizing process is where the children first intersect government. For decades now, the burden of socializing children and teaching them values has fallen to schools. It’s little wonder that they struggle so mightily with their basic mission.
The sad reality for those who believe in limited government is that this attempt to introduce schools to their food-police role is just the beginning.
Once the weight-checkers establish that a kid’s fat, or that lots of them are, there has to be a second step, and a third, all of which necessitate a more activist role for the calorie police.
First will come the movement to rid the schools of soft drink machines —- something already under way across the nation —- and to cut empty calories from school menus. Since the kids will still be fat, more aggressive school-based efforts will be required, with more nutritionists, diet managers, medical personnel and physical education counselors needed to police the gap between a child’s fork and his stomach. And of course parents or parent will need educating, too.
When these efforts fail because the problem is at home, attention will turn to manufacturers who make the products that, when consumed to excess, cause obesity —- something we’ve already seen, too.
Senate Bill 506 is well-intentioned. But can’t we cut the schools a break? I want my schools to educate children so that they can get a job and support themselves and their families. I don’t want them weighing children —- or being branded as an “unhealthy zone” if the children’s mommas and daddies feed them a dinner of potatoes, macaroni and cheese and Girl Scout cookies.
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Perdue or Romney for VP?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
While awaiting the possible end for Hillary in Ohio and Texas — she says not, but who believes it? — attention turns to John McCain and the suggestion attributed to Karl Rove that he pick Mitt Romney as his vice presidential running mate.
Rove and other GOP leaders — including, I can say with good authority the true-blue fiscal conservative Joe McCutchen of Ellijay, whose voice is often heard on conservative call-in shows — have advised McCain to pick Romney. The Rove position is according to Washington columnist Robert Novak.
McCutchen argues that picking Romney would solidify McCain’s support among small businessmen — and it would, no doubt, strengthen confidence in McCain’s ability to deal with the economy. The appeal to GOP bigwigs, opines Novak, is that he’d be able to raise cash for McCain and would attract conservatives inclined to wander off the reservation come November.
On the vice presidential question, what would you advise the two of them — McCain and Romney — to do here? Romney certainly has far more appeal with conservatives than does Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, another rumored candidate.
Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue is mentioned now and then as a possible McCain running mate? Does he have any appeal to you — and would he help McCain nationally?
An archaic law ill-serves state and its patients
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Few topics being debated in the Georgia State Senate evoke tears.
But listening this week to State Sen. Ross Tolleson (R-Perry) stand and talk tearfully about a family history of cancer that, one after another, claims its victims — “I’ve seen them go out in peace and I’ve seen my sister go out in pain” — empathic sadness descends. “My sister [Laurie Ann Tolleson of Atlanta] died at age 52,” he said. “My 52nd birthday” is days away [April 26], so I am probably next. But that’s OK. I will be ready.” Two uncles, one 68, the other 64, and a grandfather died of cancer. His father is a lung cancer survivor. “The longevity is not there,” he said later.
Doc Thomas — State Sen. Don R. Thomas (R-Dalton), a physician — took the well, too. His 26-year-old granddaughter was diagnosed with leukemia in his office. With treatment, it went into remission. On Nov. 14, doctors found that it had returned. A year to the day from the original diagnosis, she died. Just before the start of the session, his wife, Emma Jean, found that she has lung cancer.
Both rose and revealed the horrible impact of cancer on their families’ lives by way of declaring their support for Senate Bill 433. It would allow Cancer Treatment Centers of America to locate a facility near Atlanta’s airport. Others did, too, including the bill’s sponsor, Senate Majority Leader Tommie Williams of Lyons, whose stoic father died slowly and painfully.
The insight into the personal lives, the vulnerabilities and fears, of public figures brings poignancy to a policy debate that goes to the heart and soul of what Republicans stand for — and how they will govern Georgia.
The key question is whether Republicans intend to reshape government in any meaningful way — or whether they are merely the next wave of politicians who sweep into town to enjoy the perks of power and tend the affairs of interest groups. At the core of this effort by Georgia’s hospitals and the Georgia Chamber of Commerce to keep competition out is a monopoly-protecting health care regulatory system that President Ronald Reagan recognized as a failure more than 20 years ago. It’s called “certificate of need.” When first imposed in New York more than 40 years ago, the premise was that health care inflation could be contained by controlling supply — the number of hospital beds, new equipment purchases, facility expansion. That regulatory system was created. It mostly didn’t work. But it did effectively give hospitals a license to limit their competition.
It’s the health care version of the conflict between those who want choice in public education and the alphabet-soup interest groups that bitterly defend their turf and the status quo. On education, though, the new legislative majority has begun to set a course that will eventually put parents in control of their child’s education. They’ll no longer be prisoners of a Clayton County, for example.
Certificate of need is a relic. It preserves the status quo to await the arrival of HillaryCare. That the Georgia Chamber of Commerce, an organization presumably devoted to the free enterprise system and to competitive markets, so readily joins forces to defend protectionist regulation and to block a legitimate company from opening a new business in Georgia is one of its most shameful performances.
Republicans really should be wary of going down that road, of casting their lot with a regulatory system that is a substantial barrier to competition — or with those who link arms to protect it. In the case of Cancer Treatment Centers, the company readily consents to put into law an agreement that they will pay $1 million into the Georgia Indigent Care Trust Fund if they do not live up to a promise to draw 65 percent of their patients from outside Georgia. And, furthermore, they agree to provide free care to the poor equal to 3 percent of gross revenues. The facility, expected to cost in excess of $150 million, is projected to employ 400.
Williams’ bill, which would create a “destination hospital” exception to the “certificate of need” regulations, passed 31-23. Six Republicans voted in opposition. The bill goes now to the House.
“I think we need to have a good look at CON to see if it is serving its purpose,” said Dr. Thomas. “The time has probably come when we need to do away with CON. …”
Yes. That time has come.
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