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April 2008
The toxic Jeremiah Wright
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
No question Jeremiah Wright is toxic. His view of America, as expressed in the National Press Club speech, is so vile that Barack Obama finally did something he could no longer avoid. He threw him under the bus, just as he’d done to his white grandmother last month in Philadelphia.
Said Obama Tuesday of Wright’s Monday morning press club speech:
“When he states and then amplifies such ridiculous propositions as the U.S. government somehow being involved in AIDS; when he suggests that Minister [Louis] Farrakhan somehow represents one of the greatest voices of the 20th and 21st century; when he equates the United States’ wartime efforts with terrorism, then there are no excuses. They offend me, they rightly offend all Americans, and they should be denounced. And that’s what I’m doing very clearly and unequivocally here today.”
Obama’s sweeping denunciation of the crackpot uncle he’d protected in Philadelphia came after Wright hinted that Obama agreed with his bizarre and jaundiced views of America, but couldn’t acknowledge it right now. “If Senator Obama did not say what he said, he would never get elected,” said Wright Monday. “Politicians say what they say and do what they do based on electability, based on sound bites, based on polls.” Obama is, thus,in Wright’s mind, just another hack politician playing games. Toxic — especially to Obama’s candidacy.
One poll Tuesday shows Hillary is within 5 points of Obama in North Carolina, 44-49, and solidly in command in Indiana, both with primaries next Tuesday. If Obama manages to blow it in North Carolina, the pressure shifts to him to hang it up. Can’t win the big states and now momentum’s shifting to Hillary.
The real mystery is not why Obama finally felt compelled to act, but Wright himself. The guy must have an ego the size of California to continue a string of public appearances —- especially one before the press club — where he surely must know that he harms Obama’s chances of being elected President.
And even when Wright believes he’s sanitizing his message for a national audience, or at least presenting it in a way that gives context to the oft-rerun clips from previous sermons, the result is the press club speech that Obama denounced.
“What we saw yesterday out of Reverend Wright was a resurfacing and, I believe, an exploitation of those old divisions,” he said referring to “divisive politics of the past.” Continuing: ” Whatever his intentions, that was the result. It is antithetical to our campaign, it is antithetical to what I am about, it is not what I think America stands for, and I want to be very clear that moving forward Reverend Wright does not speak for me, he does not speak for our campaign. I cannot prevent him from continuing to make these outrageous remarks, but what I do want him to be very clear about, as well as all of you and the American people, is that when I say I find these comments appalling, I mean it. It contradicts everything that I’m about and who I am. And anybody who has worked with me, who knows my life, who has read my books, who has seen what this campaign’s about, I think will understand that it is completely opposed to what I stand for and where I want to take this country.”
Is the Wright saga behind him? No. The question won’t go away. If the sanitized version prompted this outrage from Obama now, why did he sit in Wright’s congregation for 20 years?
And Wright. What could possibly lead him to do his dead-level best to destroy Obama’s candidacy. It’s either ego or the man really does so hate America that he’d work to prevent it from getting what he should see as the more enlightened leadership in the White House that could “change” the practices and policies he hates. Toxic.
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Court’s voter-ID ruling vindicates a whipping boy
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Apology Window is OPEN.
First up should be the American Civil Liberties Union, Ted Kennedy, Barack Obama and other partisans on the left who made former Justice Department official Hans A. von Spakovsky the whipping boy of their vicious campaign to whip up the Democratic base against the reasonable requirement that voters produce identification at the polls.
They were brutal. Kennedy, according to The Washington Post, wrote to then-Chairman Trent Lott of the Senate Rules Committee objecting to his nomination to the Federal Elections Commission. Von Spakovsky, who was appointed in 2001 to the election-reform unit of the Justice Department’s voting rights section, “may be at the heart of the political interference that is undermining the Department’s enforcement of federal civil laws,” said Kennedy.
Obama, Kennedy and other Democrats blocked von Spakovsky’s permanent appointment to the FEC on the basis of his belief that states could require voters to produce proper identification before voting.
Guess what?
The U.S. Supreme Court agrees with von Spakovsky. The court said so Monday in an opinion that is as emphatic as it gets these days.
The Associated Press described the 6-3 opinion upholding an Indiana’s Voter ID law as “splintered.” Five-four is splintered. Six-three means that even the liberal bloc “splintered” to join the majority. “We cannot conclude that the statute imposes ‘excessively burdensome requirements’ on any class of voters,” wrote —- sit down, conservatives, you’re not going to believe the name that follows —- Justice John Paul Stevens.
He was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts, Justices Samuel Alito, Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Anthony Kennedy.
In an election, the 6-3 outcome would have been interpreted as a landslide. A landslide, slam-dunk, blow-out for the very view that got poor old Hans von Spakovsky vilified.
Von Spakovsky, a former chairman of the Fulton County Republican Party and member of the Fulton County Board of Registration and Elections , was appointed by former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft as counsel to the assistant attorney general for civil rights, specializing in voting and election issues.
President George W. Bush gave him a recess appointment to the Federal Election Commission in January 2006. Democrats blocked efforts to make the recess appointment permanent before it expired on Dec. 31, leaving the six-member FEC with just two commissioners, two shy of the number needed to conduct official business. Von Spakovsky has since become a Heritage Foundation scholar researching and writing about election issues, though the Senate could still confirm him to the FEC.
While opponents needed no excuse to oppose Von Spakovsky, the pretense for declaring him an enemy of the voting rights of humankind was an article he wrote for the Texas Review of Law & Politics in which he declared that there was no evidence a voter ID requirement disenfranchised minorities, as alleged. The article contained this truth: “The objections are merely anecdotal and based on the unproven perception that minority groups such as African-Americans do not possess identification documents to the same degree as Caucasians.”
There’s never been any question that states can impose reasonable requirements on voting. Requiring proper identification proving that you are who you say you are is eminently reasonable, as von Spakovsky and —- pinch me! —- Justice John Paul Stevens acknowledge. (Von Spakovsky has written two pieces for Heritage that bear reading: “Stolen Identities, Stolen Votes” on March 10 and “Where There’s Smoke, There’s Fire” on April 16 about 100,000 fraudulent votes cast in Chicago during the 1982 Illinois gubernatorial election.)
This is an example of small matters made large for partisan purposes and of good public officials trashed without mercy.
For Hans A. von Spakovsky, though, a day of vindication comes.
It was Monday, April 28.
The Window is OPEN.
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The Obama Rules
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Rev. Jeremiah Wright has begun the campaign to convince the electorate that he’s not really an anti-American bigot. His remarks are descriptive, not divisive, he told 10,000 members of the NAACP at a dinner Sunday in Detroit.”I describe the conditions in this country.”
For Barack Obama’s sake, Wright has to recast his rhetoric and conduct some historical revisionism so that he’s not the virulent anti-American radical that the nation heard in his sermons. Otherwise, Obama can never get over the hurdle with Middle America that he sat for 20 years and listened to sermons from the blame-America fringe.
Sen. John McCain, who has previously watched from the sidelines as Obama’s campaign began to self-destruct with the candidate’s bumbling refusal to distance himself from Wright, weighed in on the controversy.
“I saw yesterday some additional comments that have been revealed by Pastor Wright, one of them comparing the United States Marine Corps with Roman Legionaires who were responsible for the death of our savior. I mean being involved in that, it’s beyond belief. And then of course saying that al-Qaida and the American flag were the same flags,” McCain said Sunday.
McCain said again Sunday that he wants the North Carolina Republican Party to stop running an ad that feature’s Wright’s “God d—n America” remarks, which the ad properly links to Obama. Fair play, I’d say. The N.C. GOP should ignore the party’s presumptive nominee.
McCain, obviously convinced as most others are that Obama will be his opponent in November, also weighed in on his God, guns and bigotry remarks. “I can understand why Americans, when viewing these kinds of comments, are angry and upset,” said McCain. “Just like they view Senator Obama’s statements about why people turn to their faith and their values. He believes that it’s out of economic concerns. We all know it’s out of a fundamental belief, a fundamental faith in this country and its values and its principles.”
Obama hopes that he can sail into the White House without further scrutiny and without having his opponent attempt to define him for voters. “With each passing day, John McCain acts more and more like someone who’s spent 26 years learning the divisive, distracting tactics of Washington,” Obama campaign said in a statement . “That’s not the change that the American people are looking for.”
Change. If you question him or his values or policies, you’re part of the “divisive, distracting” practices voters associate with Washington. If you become an unquestioning, adoring political groupie, you’re not. Them’s the Obama Rules.
.
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In education, parents deserve to have a choice
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The nagging question since Republicans took full control under the Gold Dome is this: What difference does it make?
In many areas, the difference is hard to see. Not so with education. Bit by bit, Georgia is catching up with other states in giving parents control over the education our children receive.
That is one of the major differences that surfaces repeatedly in legislative debate about education, about health care and, in general, about the role of government in our lives. It’s become especially noticeable in the past year. Democrats and Republicans are beginning to divide philosophically here, as they do nationally.
The debate generally breaks down as to whether we as citizens are responsible enough to choose what’s best for us — or whether wiser, better-informed and more compassionate bureaucrats should exercise that authority.
It’s the transcendent conflict of our time, made all the more urgent by the fact that the national tax base is shrinking while lifestyle choices grow dependence. In 2004, according to the Washington-based Tax Foundation, 42.5 million Americans filed returns and had zero tax liability, up from 32 million four years earlier. Non-payers have increased 160 percent since 1985, the foundation reports. Meanwhile, out-of-wedlock births make government a second parent.
The question then becomes how to bridge individuals to self-reliance. On education, it’s school choice. Give parents information, and then assist them to act.
One of the most significant pieces of legislation for parents of schoolchildren passed this year and is now awaiting Gov. Sonny Perdue’s signature. It’s House Bill 1133, authored by schoolteacher David Casas, a Republican representative from Lilburn in Gwinnett County.
It would allow a $1,000 income tax break for individuals ($2,500 for couples) who donate to organizations that give scholarships to children in public schools to attend schools of the parents’ choosing.
Corporations could receive credits of up to 75 percent of their state tax liability, which has proven to be a powerful incentive in other states — notably Florida and Pennsylvania — according to a study by Brian Gottlob, a senior fellow for the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice. All credits would be capped at $50 million per year.
Parents could not take tax credits for their own child’s education expenses, nor could they designate scholarship recipients.
In Georgia, average private school tuition is estimated by the foundation at $5,940 per year.
Kelly McCutchen, vice president of the Georgia Public Policy Foundation, which had partnered with the Friedman Foundation on the Gottlob study, notes that there’s no cap on the amount of scholarships that organizations can grant. An average grant of $3,000, used as an estimate while the bill was being debated, would have reduced tuition by an average of 51 percent, Gottlob found.
Now, however, organizations could choose to concentrate on low-income students, for example, and provide full scholarships.
In the preliminary study, the estimate was that local schools would get benefits amounting to almost twice the $50 million state tax credit cap. That’s because they keep the local property tax revenues although they’d not have to educate the children who received the scholarships.
“It’s a tremendous victory for school choice,” said McCutchen, whose Atlanta-based think tank is a strong advocate for parents on education choice. “You have to ask yourself what is best for the child. We’ve got to give these kids the best opportunity for a good, solid education because if they drop out, we are sentencing them to a lifetime of struggle.”
House Bill 1133 is a major advance in choice. Georgia is not the national leader here. Arizona, Florida, Pennsylvania, Iowa and Rhode Island offer tax credits along the lines of those now proposed here.
The difference between the two parties is that one trusts informed parents to know what’s best for their child — and helps them. The other insists that children be held hostage in public schools until those who organize and run them get it right.
House Bill 1133 is big-league movement in the right direction for parents and children.
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Porn, Earth Day, Justice Thomas
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Thinking Right’s weekend free-for-all. Pick a topic:
If a Katrina occurs on his watch, John McCain says he would immediately fly to the nearest Air Force base, presumably to direct operations. “Never again, never again, will a disaster of this nature be handled in the disgraceful way it was handled.” Once again, the locals and then the state are responsible for preparation and for first response to disasters. McCain shouldn’t use this dead time in Republican presidential politics to federalize those roles.
I have rarely been more embarrassed for my alma mater, the University of Georgia. Protesting the choice of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas as commencement speaker, as some faculty members have done, embarrasses the institution. I’m not a vindictive guy, but those who are so intolerant of free speech don’t belong in the classroom.
OK, it turned out badly.but the decision by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to try to save taxpayers $138 — the cost of a metal pulley that’s part of the gauge measuring the water level at Lake Lanier — is hereby lauded. Imagine that. Bureaucrats who spend millions actually concerned about $138. Give ‘em a raise. On me.
Headline: “Donors generous just before session.” The shocking news is that just prior to the opening of this year’s General Assembly, those with business before the body were generous in campaign contributions to politicians. Shocking! Go back 20 years. Match campaign contributions by industry to legislation under consideration. There’s always a link. The only real solution is full and timely disclosure. Give voters information and they’ll act.
An 11-county poll for the Transit Planning Board, another of those groups involved in the process of talking about transportation fixes, finds that 58 percent of Metro Atlantans say they would support a 1 percent sales tax to fund a specific list of transportation projects. Me too — as long as it is the right fix and actually reduced traffic congestion. That’s the rub. Whether it’s a penny or a quarter — the amount gas has gone up at my station in the past week — are we getting actual, measured traffic congestion relief? If not, a penny is too much.
Angela Speir won’t run for reelection to the Georgia Public Service Commission. Too bad. She’s as honest as they come. She takes no freebies, meals or tickets, from those associated with utilities the PSC regulates.
I’m OD’ed on Clayton County schools personnel problems. Wake me when the parents get vouchers and can take their business elsewhere.
U.S. Congressman Paul Broun of Athens, elected to fill the vacancy created by the death of Charlie Norwood, is a short-timer. Attempting to ban the sale and rental on military bases in the U.S. and abroad of sexually explicit material — Playboy and Penthouse among them — is misguided. Sure the culture’s gone to hell. But let adults in uniform decide what troops want to see and read.
A written reprimand — the punishment given to DOT commissioner Gena Abraham — is nothing. In the political-appointee business, you’re either fired or you’re in charge. She’s in charge and the decision will come back to haunt. Board member Dana Lemon put her finger on it: “I strongly feel like the board and the department have to operate with integrity, credibility, consistency, transparency…” The department has 5,700 employees. Neither she nor the board can now come down hard on subordinates who have lapses of judgment.
Quiz the school kids: Do they know more about Earth Day or the Declaration of Independence or World War II. I’m guessing Earth Day.
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Will taxes follow home values down?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
In one of our earlier discussions, Carrie Smith made a point that bears a follow-up.
Since her family moved into their current home in DeKalb County, six years ago property taxes have been raised five times, she wrote. ” Now that property values are falling, I would like the same enthusiasm from them decreasing my real estate taxes!” She continued:
” I am a real estate appraiser, and have seen properties which are valued by the county 3 times what they are now worth! Since the government is so aggressive in increasing our real estate taxes when values are increasing, I would like to see them now be aggressive in decreasing our real estate taxes with real estate prices declining! “
Maybe it’s just cynicism on my part, but I’d be shocked to discover that home assessments are following the prices down. While some token reduction in assessed value is likely, my guess is that local officials will react to efforts this year in the Georgia General Assembly to cap assessments at 2008 levels. While that legislation did not pass, it will most certainly trigger a response from county officials who now fear that the Legislature will lock them in, prohibiting assessments from increasing more than two or three percentage points.
So, Carrie Smith, none of us should count on lower assessments that follow the market down. But if anybody has evidence otherwise, speak up.
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Nation’s voters don’t embrace liberals
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Pennsylvania had 158 delegates at stake Tuesday. No resolution, still, despite the outcome. Obama went into Tuesday with 1,646 delegates to 1,508 for Clinton, with 2,025 needed to win the nomination.
Among delegates won in primaries and caucuses, Obama led 1,414 to 1,250, according to the Associated Press count, while Hillary has a 258-232 lead among superdelegates. Who can decipher the rules? (It was amusing that in last weekend’s Georgia delegate-selection process the rules mandate specific gender balance by candidate. What a disaster.)
It is noteworthy, as others have pointed out, that Democrats are about to nominate another candidate in the mold of John Kerry, Michael Dukakis, George McGovern, Jimmy Carter and Al Gore — and one who’ll get the nomination by winning smaller states, like South Carolina, that the party has no hopes of winning in November. Except for his home state of Illinois, Hillary won the big states: New York, New Jersey, California, Texas, Florida Ohio and others essential to Democratic success in November.
His base is blacks, liberals and young voters. Blue-collar workers making less than $50,000 a year, older women and Hispanics — key constituencies the party needs — aren’t with him yet.
Kerry, Dukakis, Gore and McGovern couldn’t win. Obama is one of them — too far left for America.
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Forum on manhood misses the mark
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
A group of middle-class black professionals, including doctors, lawyers, teachers, clergy and politicians, gathered more than 500 people at Macon State College on a Saturday in March to have a conversation about manhood.
They chose as topics the criminal justice system, spirituality, mentoring and how to educate black males.
The reporter for The (Macon) Telegraph, Ashley Tusan Joyner, offered an account of the session on “Law & Black Society.” In it, Atlanta lawyer Mawuli Mel Davis instructed young men on how to deal with the police. “The Fourth Amendment protects our rights against unreasonable searches and seizures,” she quotes him as instructing. “You can always say, ‘No, I do not consent to a search.’ “
A teacher speaking about educating young black males blamed the system. “The reason they’re not graduating is because we’re not teaching them to think,” Joyner reported him as saying. “We need to find ways to make education more relevant to them.”
I readily acknowledge I wasn’t there.
But it is shocking to read that given the opportunity to have a conversation about manhood with young males, role models who are successful and accomplished in life chose to talk to them as potential criminals and as victims of an education system that had not found a way to make itself “relevant.”
Not addressed, apparently, was manhood, as in fatherhood. Or manhood, as in taking responsibility. Or manhood, as in not treating sexual partners as throwaways without concern for consequence, whether that consequence is a sexually transmitted disease or the creation of human life. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported in early March that at least one in four teenage girls nationally has a sexually transmitted disease. Among black teens ages 14-19, it’s nearly half.
Another study released last week offers findings that are, in a less tragic sense, further evidence of the need to reorient the conversation. As has been amply reported, 25 percent of white children, 46 percent of Hispanics and 69 percent of blacks are born to unmarried women.
The cost is enormous. When combined with divorce (a rate that’s declined slightly in recent years) almost a third of children live in single-parent homes. In 1970, 85.2 percent of children lived with both parents; in 2005, it was 68.3 percent.
Any number of studies have documented the harm to children and the social costs in higher rates of crime, drug abuse, poverty, mental and physical illnesses, educational failures, and other damaging consequences to children deprived of the life-guiding influence of both parents.
Now Benjamin Scafidi, an economist in the J. Whitney Bunting School of Business at Georgia College & State University in Milledgeville, presents valuable new research on the economic costs.
“We estimate that family fragmentation costs U.S. taxpayers at least $112 billion each and every year, or more than $1 trillion each decade,” concludes the study, which was done for the Institute for American Values, the Institute for Marriage and Public Policy, Georgia Family Council and Families Northwest. Scafidi, a former education policy adviser to Gov. Sonny Perdue, was principal researcher. If public policies encouraging marriage reduced family fragmentation by just 1 percent, the savings to taxpayers would amount to $1.1 billion yearly, the study finds.
It seems clear that the conversation about what constitutes “manhood” needs to change, especially when the government, the media, opinion leaders and community role models gather young men to help them define it. Manliness is not creating and abandoning babies and the women who bear them. Leah Ward Sears, chief justice of the Georgia Supreme Court, is one of the voices stepping up. She is on the board of directors of one of the sponsoring organizations, the Institute for American Values.
“Healthy marriage is not only the best place to raise children, it is the indispensable institution without which all other social reform efforts will fail,” she said. “Healthy and intact families are the cradle of thriving societies.” Preach that. Teach that. Counsel that.
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Any relief to high gas prices?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
With gas prices in the Metro Atlanta area already approaching $3.50 per gallon for regular, the Secretary-General of OPEC, Abdullah el al-Badri, predicted Sunday that they’ll go even higher. World oil prices reached a new high on Friday, at $117 a barrel.
There’s the weakness of the dollar, speculation and some supply and demand concerns pushing up the price. The OPEC chief said production would be increased if they thought that higher prices were due to shortages, but they aren’t.”But how much higher it will go, of course it depends on a number of things: the political situation, whether there is a natural catastrophe, whether there are speculations in the market, whether there are strikes in certain producing countries”al-Badri said.
U.S. Sen. John McCain, who’ll be the Republican standard-bearer, has suggested suspending the 18.5-cent per gallon federal tax, though price increases would have consumed that in the past two weeks. The nation could temporarily halt purchases for the strategic petroleum reserves, but that’s not expected either.
Is anybody planning any significant change in lifestyle because of high prices? My brother just parked his pick-up truck — his vehicle of choice for all travel — and purchased a small Toyota that, he proudly announced over the weekend, had delivered 41.7 miles per gallon on a 250-mile trip. As for me, other than organizing routine trips more carefully and consolidating those to run errands, I’m still buying and paying.
Supporters of buses and rail think these high prices make their case. But the reality is that buses and trains don’t connect one in a hundred of the starting and destination trips for, I’d say, 95 percent of the people who live in Metro Atlanta. And what’s more, there’s no affordable way to create a system that would.
So for now, we reduce demand as much as possible and wait for the speculators’ bubble to burst.
Check out where to find cheaper gas and ways to stretch your dollar.
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To Obama, it’s a political tool
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
As a Southerner accustomed to a culture of God, guns and patriotism expressed as easily and comfortably as one’s preference for Fords or Chevrolets, I’m jarred by Barack Obama’s every attempt to explain his patriotism.
I don’t deny his patriotism.
I just don’t recognize his definitions.
In Wednesday night’s debate, he was asked a videotaped question by Nash McCabe of Latrobe, Pa. “I want to know if you believe in the American flag,” she asked. “I am not questioning your patriotism, but all our servicemen, policemen and EMS wear the flag. I want to know why you don’t.”
“I revere the American flag and I would not be running for president if I did not revere this country,” he said. In no other country, he continued, would “my story” even be possible. And then this, which is where the words begin to jar:
“What I’ve tried to do is to show my patriotism by how I treat veterans when I’m working in the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee; by making sure that I’m speaking forcefully about how we need to bring this war in Iraq to a close because I think it is not serving our national security well and it’s not serving our military families and our troops well; talking about how we need to restore a sense of economic fairness to this country because that’s what this country has always been about, is providing upward mobility and ladders to opportunity for all Americans. That’s what I love about this country. And so I will continue to fight for those issues.”
This is not patriotism — or at least any form of it I recognize. Substitute any interest group — organized labor, trial lawyers, bartenders, Teamsters or insurance agents — after the phrase “I’ve tried to show my (compassion, support, patriotism) by how I treat (name the interest group) in the Senate. …”
Patriotism, then, becomes a political commodity. When a sufficient number of favors are bestowed on veterans, the dispenser of them is presumably declared a full-fledged patriot.
“Speaking forcefully” about ending a war in a fashion that dishonors the sacrifices of patriots who risk their lives is no virtue. The nation incurs an obligation, from the first moment it commits them to sacrifice, to preserve their honor. That means never putting them in a position where they are asked to betray the friends who trusted in us and our promise of freedom. Vietnam veterans will go to their graves with the mental images of vulnerable people betrayed when our nation broke its word. There’s certainly no peace in that.
It’s offensive to think that patriotism is balancing accounts in a ledger or bringing a quick conclusion, honorable or not, to any war. Or that political gibberish about “economic fairness” or “ladders to opportunity” connect in any which way with the motivating sense of duty that draws men and women to risk their lives.
Nor is there any understanding in the explanation of patriotism that Obama offers of why he tolerated for 20 years the virulent anti-Americanism of Jeremiah Wright or why he continued a friendship with William Ayers, a member of the radical Weather Underground.
The disconnect between both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama and the boots on the ground could not have been more vivid than in their responses to questions about whether they would maintain an arbitrary withdrawal schedule despite the risks. “So you’d give some hard-rock pledge,” asked Charlie Gibson of ABC News that all troops would be out in 16 months and “that no matter what the military commanders say, you would give the order: Bring them home.”
Replied Obama: “Because the commander in chief sets the mission, Charlie. That’s not the role of the generals. …”
Yes, but …
It is ultimately not about presidents and generals performing roles. It’s about the sons and daughters of America and of our national honor and ultimately, of course, about national security and the world our children will inherit.
Patriotism in a president is not about calling ordinary soldiers heroes. It is not about giving them things of material value. Nor is it about putting them on an exit plane while the people they betrayed watch in horror at the emptiness of our promises. It’s about making it possible for those who answered their country’s call to duty to look themselves in the mirror for the rest of their lives.
That’s the America Obama doesn’t comprehend.
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DNA samples, air safety, truck lanes
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Thinking Right’s weekend free-for-all. Pick a topic:
Among the pork barrel spending inserted in this year’s state budget was $2,500 to help purchase materials and equipment for a commercial aviation museum in Clay County, population 3,180, south of Columbus on the Alabama line. The grant is presumably to foster preservation of Clay’s rich commercial aviation history. But with this kind of pork, who asks? It’s some legislator’s reward for voting as the leadership wanted.
The Georgia Budget and Policy Institute opposing tax cuts is the fat man opposing smaller portions of french fries. “These tax cuts will continue the erosion of the tax base, which means fewer people will be footing the bills or less dollars will be going to education, health care and public safety,” said Sarah Beth Gehl, the advocacy group’s deputy director.
Wonder how many of the women’s advocates expressing dismay at the gender imbalance under the Gold Dome would be thrilled to see more who are pro-life and social conservatives? Ah, that’s what I thought. It’s not women. It’s women with particular political leanings.
Two extraordinarily good bits of news concerning commercial airlines. One is Delta. (We love you, buddy.) The other is that not a single person died in an accident involving scheduled airlines in this country in 2007. Sure, our lives and schedules are momentarily ruined when American Airlines cancels nearly 3,100 flights affecting 250,000 passengers to inspect wiring. But nobody died in 2007. Credit the Federal Aviation Administration and the airlines. Wow. They’re achieving a safety record equal to nuclear power.
The feds intend to collect DNA samples from everybody arrested by any federal agency. Some express concerns about privacy and about potential for misuse of the information. Not a concern here. Existing laws prevent it from being used to identify genetic traits, diseases or disorders. A 2005 study in Chicago finds that 53 murders and rapes could have been prevented had samples been collected on arrest. Go for it.
Atlanta and Fulton County water customers may be asked to pay rates that are 15 percent higher to offset customers’ conservation efforts. Use less, pay more. No good deed …
Much as the private sector is a key player in the state’s transportation solutions —- toll roads, for example, and private bus operators —- the Georgia Department of Transportation gets good advice from its financial adviser, Aaron Barman of Royal Bank of Canada: Suspend consideration on projects like truck lanes until the DOT makes decisions on how high tolls should be and whether use by truckers should be mandatory. (To the latter, yes.) The DOT has to make certain that it has the people and procedures to manage private-sector contracts, keeping relationships at arm’s length.
Insurance Commissioner John Oxendine becomes the first Republican to jump into the 2010 governor’s race. It’s not too early. And it’s hard to argue with his logic that the next governor should be from a “neutral” corner —- that is, not part of the current leadership problem. Republicans who can’t deliver tax cuts to those who don’t hire lobbyists are probably not gubernatorial material.
Hamas officials said Jimmy Carter’s meetings with them boost their legitimacy. And they’re right. At least one Democrat, Barack Obama, got it right: “We must not negotiate with a terrorist group intent on Israel’s destruction. We should only sit down with Hamas if they renounce terrorism, recognize Israel’s right to exist and abide by past agreements.” Which means we don’t sit down with them in Carter’s lifetime. Or Obama’s.
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Hillary and Obama: Slicing and dicing.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
OK, so Hillary wasn’t under sniper fire in Bosnia in 1996. But at least she had the integrity to stand up Wednesday night and admit that she lied. How often do you hear that from a politician — an honest answer that she lied.
“On a couple of occasions in the last weeks, I just said some things that were not in keeping with what I knew to be the case,” she said. “I’m embarrassed by it. I apologized for it. I said it was a mistake.”
“You can go back for the past 15 months. We both have said things that, you know, turned out not to be accurate,” said Clinton. “That happens when you’re talking as much as we have talked. But, you know, I’m very sorry that I said it.”
Barack Obama returned once again to his testimony about why working-class people in small towns cling to God, guns and bigotry as well as his notions about how patriotism should be expressed by the President.
“The point I was making was that when people feel like Washington is not listening to them that politically they end up focusing on those things that are constant, like religion, which is a place they can find some refuge.” (Ever notice that anytime any politician says something dumb and offensive the clarification is always smooth and reasonable? Unless, of course, you’re Trent Lott or a Republican.)
Wednesday night’s debate, which was well worth watching, may be the last before next Tuesday’s Pennsylvania primary. Hillary once had a substantial lead there, but the two are now tied. In recent days, she’s launched television advertising there that refers to Obama’s God, guns and bigotry remark as “a fundamental misunderstanding of religion and faith.”
When asked whether Obama could win in November, she replied: “Yes, yes, yes. Now I think I can do a better job. Obviously that’s why I’m here.”
I’m not yet ready to say “no, no, no” in the case of either Hillary or Obama. But I do hope Republicans who might be inclined to drift to a third party or to stay home have been watching these debates. They can be beat, either of them. They speak a language — Obama, especially — that is not out of Middle America. Elitist? Out-of-touch? Something. Whatever the quality is, John Kerry had it, as did George McGovern. And Hillary, poor Hillary, has been pushed so far to the left that she’s losing her prospects, however limited they were, to appeal to Middle America, especially those who aren’t ready to embrace defeat in Iraq.
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Does Carter matter?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jimmy Carter has been shunned by Israel and criticized by the White House for a private “peace mission” to the Middle East that has him placing a wreath on the grave of PLO leader Yasser Arafat and meeting with Hamas, a group designated by the U.S. as a terrorist organization.
He plans to meet Hamas’s top leader, Khaled Mashaal, in Syria on Friday. He’s the guy who praised Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for saying that Israel should be “wiped off the map.”
“What Iranian officials say may not please some people,” said Mashaal, who is based in Damascus, “but these are just courageous declarations.”
What Carter does as a private citizen and certainly what he does as a private citizen during the administration of George Bush has no consequential policy implications. If Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama is elected the symbolism of a former American president meeting with a terrorist organization would — or could — take on some significance.
“Since Syria and Hamas will have to be involved in a final peace agreement, they have to be involved in discussions that lead to final peace,” Carter explained by way of justifying his meetings.
Does his trip matter? Not to the extent that it affects U.S. policy. Carter does, however, redefine the role of ex-presidents. He’s criticized U.S. foreign policy while standing on foreign soil. And he meets with leaders of a terrorist organization determined to see the destruction of America’s staunchest ally.
At some point, after Carter, I do hope the U.S. reestablishes the protocol that we have one president, one foreign policy, and one place to voice criticism — on this side of the water’s edge.
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Traffic fix? Atlanta needs a plan before any tax levy
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
“My number one issue in electing somebody in metro Atlanta would be traffic,” and specifically, traffic congestion.
The speaker is state Sen. Jeff Mullis of Chickamauga, one of the movers and shakers, with state Rep. Vance Smith Jr. of Pine Mountain, in the failed effort to speed up action on solving the state’s transportation woes. The joint study committee that Mullis and Smith chaired looked specifically at funding, though new funding is an answer that comes after Georgians know what the money is buying.
At the top of the list, for metro Atlanta anyway, should be congestion relief, a priority Mullis acknowledges. “If you’re sitting in traffic in Atlanta, you’ve got to think it’s the top priority.”
The General Assembly session ended without Mullis or a “Get Georgia Moving” coalition of 50 local government associations, contractors, environmental activists and chambers of commerce getting their wish. A proposed constitutional amendment that represented their solution —- a 1 percent regional sales tax on motor fuels dedicated to “transportation purposes” —- fell three votes shy in the state Senate.
The entire episode, start to finish, is an example of what happens when the body politic perceives a leadership void.
Before fixing on a solution that involves asking voters to approve a 1 cent sales tax increase, the state should have a comprehensive statewide transportation plan. Then we could debate whether it achieved the purpose of reducing traffic congestion in metro Atlanta, how it addressed other needs, like, for example, giving motorists a way to get across North Georgia, what it would cost and how the pieces would be financed. And we’d know whether the tax should be a penny or 10 and what role tolls would play in providing gridlock relief to metro Atlanta.
We don’t.
That void created by Gov. Sonny Perdue’s approach to developing a statewide plan prompted groups that included the Georgia Chamber of Commerce, the Association of County Commissioners of Georgia, C.W. Matthews Contracting Co. Inc., the Sierra Club, the Southern Environmental Law Center and dozens of others to draft their own proposal for the regional sales tax. It prompted the House and Senate, too, to launch the effort by Mullis and Smith to —- in the phrase of House Speaker Glenn Richardson —- “do something.”
The risk in convening 50 organizations and interest groups is that they spend imaginary money extracted from somebody else to fund each other’s dreams.
And the “do something” may actually preclude efforts later to do something statewide that involves the same penny of taxing capacity.
And yet that’s what happens in a political void.
Somebody and some solution fills it.
The proposed amendment never got perfected. It represented some principles that stuck in the craw of key legislators, including allowing a neighboring county’s voters to raise your taxes. It created a dedicated tax that the state would collect and hand over to regional authorities to be spent for “transportation purposes.”
The proposed amendment question was so vague and inviting that it could have been written for a traveling medicine show. “Shall the Constitution of Georgia be amended so as to allow that all revenue currently collected from motor fuel taxes be designated to fund transportation and to provide for communities and regions to solve their transportation problems through a referendum?”
The Legislature backed into policy decisions that should be more fully considered on their own merit, not just as agreements necessary to get to the 1 cent sales tax. Dedicating a tax and writing into the constitution that the pass-along funds “shall not be subject to budgetary reduction” is a significant step in delegating power to a regional government that is one step removed from voters.
Metro Atlantans desperately need congestion relief —- and the state desperately needs to come up with a comprehensive plan to deliver it.
The state now has eight months to deliver it —- or risk a void.
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Surprise! Obama talks himself into trouble.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
For some time I’ve believed that Barack Obama would talk himself into trouble — and out of the White House. The weekend brouhaha concerning his remarks at a closed San Francisco fund-raiser a week earlier is an example of the trouble he’s apt to buy whenever he starts winging it.
He was explaining working-class voters in Pennsylvania reacting to economic conditions. Said Obama, as reported by The Huffington Post:
“It’s not surprising, then, they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”
Obama tried Saturday to quiet the criticism. “If I worded things in a way that made people offended, I deeply regret that,” he said in North Carolina.
Obama’s views, which are as Hillary Clinton said Sunday, elitist, reflect those of a guy who’s lived his adult life in a liberal cocoon. When you listen to the liberal elite describe America, it’s hard to like the nation they see. It’s evil and predatory, a nation composed of the unenlightened and embittered, a populace seething with rage, drugged on religion and talk radio, unable to adjust to a changing world they — we — can’t comprehend.
It’s what you sense when you listen to Obama’s preacher, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, describe America.
Call me old fashion, but I want a president who gets a tingle when the Stars and Stripes pass, who drives through working-class communities of Pennsylvania and marvels at the resilience of struggling families pulling together and through difficult times. I want him to see families whose sons and daughters march off to war out of a sense of duty and for love of country, not because they’ve been tricked or have no other options. I want him to see them, the men and women in uniform, not as heroes and certainly not as victims, but as patriots answering the call of a country they know is worth defending.
I want Barack Obama, if he does become President, to see something in the working class communities of Pennsylvania that he does not now.
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Looking ahead to 2010, and real leadership
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Granted this year’s elections are still months away. But it’s 2010 that’s beginning to loom large for Georgia.
The group that AJC reporter James Salzer described as “Georgia’s Three non-Amigos of politics” briefly gathered under the Gold Dome for a photo op this week. Nobody was hurt.
The reality is, however, that the three — Gov. Sonny Perdue, Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle and House Speaker Glenn Richardson — have a terminally sour relationship that, in the language of failed marriages, is irretrievably broken. Who’s at fault? It no longer matters.
Of the three, the speaker is the only one who can be ousted before the next legislative session. If incumbent House members fare badly in the July 15 primary or in November’s general election, Richardson’s in trouble. If Perdue or Cagle try to influence House politics, he’s a shoo-in.
Perdue is, like former House Speaker Tom Murphy in his waning years in office, a powerful figure whom adversaries provoke at their peril. But his political capital is substantially devalued, especially in the House. His final two years in office are on a trajectory that doesn’t bode well for a crowning legislative achievement. His legacy will be that he strove to make Georgia the best-managed state in the country and approached issues — water, for example, or education — methodically in search of long-term solutions.
Casey Cagle is an enigma. My colleague Mike King describes him as “more Eddie Haskell-like,” a reference to the “Leave it to Beaver” character whose politeness around parents belied a devious and insincere troublemaker.
Indeed, Cagle’s press conference to reveal a $1.2 billion plan to reduce state income taxes came after 80 percent of the legislative session had expired and after the House had passed a $672 million proposal to eliminate the car tax. In the end, nothing passed.
An honest debate starting much earlier might have prompted serious consideration of whether tax relief should be broad-based (the House proposal), incentivize work (Cagle’s) or encourage retirees to move to Georgia (Perdue’s promise to eliminate the state income tax on retirement income). That debate never materialized, of course.
Cagle did something similar last year, waiting until after the House passed a budget to inform them that the Senate would strip out all pork. Ultimately they didn’t, then or now. The timing on his declaration launched the disaster of last session, which culminated with Perdue vetoing 41 bills, including $142 million in tax relief. Cagle wants to be governor in 2010. His chances depend on which of the two Eddie Haskells Georgians see.
Rumors have persisted for months that U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson will return home to run for governor when his term expires in 2010. Others mentioned are U.S. Reps. Lynn Westmoreland of Grantville, Phil Gingrey of Marietta and Jack Kingston of Savannah. Those who are serious should signal intent.
Likewise, those who are serious about running for lieutenant governor should, too.
Georgia cannot endure another six years of the last two.
As a young reporter, I covered Douglas County and later DeKalb, both in periods of transition. For a spell they were like Clayton County is now. They elected officials unsuited to leadership. As with Clayton, there comes a time when the public coalesces and demands something different.
For Georgia, the good news is an able Legislature filled with promising people. Many are good Reaganesque conservatives who have begun to master policy areas and issues. The future is better than the present.
They want to be led. Not dictated to. Led. Led to a purpose based on principles and a vision.
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Beware lifestyle police, third parties
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Thinking Right’s weekend-free-for-all. Pick a topic:
When metro Atlanta slips as deeply as the Europeans into the clutches of big government, expect here the tyranny of the lifestyle police that is on display in London. There drivers of “gas-guzzling” cars will be forced to pay almost $50 a day to enter central London, while those considered fuel-efficient enter free. The new rules, imposed by the mayor, start Oct. 27. The primary obstacle here is not that lifestyle-tyrants don’t exist, but that there’s no way to hem in those who would take flight: people and businesses. But our day will come when somebody tries.
New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg already has. He proposed to charge $8 for cars and $21 for trucks entering parts of Manhattan during peak hours. But wait. Democrats in the state Legislature pulled the plug this week. Opponents argued that it’s a tax on the working class and that the array of cameras needed to enforce restrictions would violate privacy rights.
New York and London can’t do much about traffic, but developing cities, like those in metro Atlanta, shouldn’t approve projects that overload existing or funded road upgrades. Don’t make problems worse by adding high density to already congested streets.
The Galleria area at I-75 and I-285 in Cobb County is metro Atlanta’s emerging downtown. Two popular home-related shows announce that they’re moving to Cobb in 2009, citing accessibility and free parking. The Southeastern Flower Show and the Spring Atlanta Home Show were previously at the Georgia World Congress Center. Congestion has consequences.
The Legislature did have some worthwhile moments. A bill by state Rep. Jeff May (R- Monroe) cuts down on the games locals play with special elections, like the one the Cobb County Board of Education intends to call on Sept. 16 to extend the local option sales tax through 2013. May’s legislation requires special elections on questions to be held in a primary or general election in even years and on two specified days in odd years, starting in 2010. The game has been to pick odd days when few people other than supporters are likely to show up.
It’s always fascinating to hear the persecuted say what they believe is in the minds of others. Cobb Commissioner Annette Kesting opines that “a lot of white folks are mad because I married a white man because I am a black woman.”
Public service pays. The Clintons’ income since he left office is $109 million.
Former Congressman Bob Barr may run for president as a Libertarian. I like him, but … no third parties for me. The last spoiler got me eight years of Bill Clinton. And maybe eight more of Hillary.
Headline: “States may save money by freeing inmates.” Nobody saves money or lives putting bad guys back on the street. California may release 22,000 “nonviolent, nonsexual offenders.”
Yesterday’s bad ideas are back. The chairman of the House Committee on Transportation, Rep. James Oberstar (D-Minn.), notes American Airlines’ troubles this week with flight cancellations and warns that pressure is mounting to “re-regulate” the airline industry. The Airline Deregulation Act of 1978 was a highlight, maybe the highlight, of Jimmy Carter’s presidency. It preceded more widespread industry deregulation by Ronald Reagan. Re-regulation is a seriously bad idea.
Another bad idea resurfaces before the House Small Business Committee. Small-time truckers want price controls on fuel. President Nixon tried wage-and-price controls in 1971. Never again. It’s amazing how much of the “change” promised by Democrats takes them back to yesterday’s failed solutions.
It can’t be long before prominent members of the Party of Yesterday’s Solutions calls for a boycott of the Olympic Games.
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Price controls on gas?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
With gas 55 cents per gallon higher than last year — the national average is now $3.34 per gallon — a group of small business owners testifying before Congress Wednesday called for government price controls.
“We feel the need to limit the price of fuel on a weekly basis,” said Michael Graff, owner of a trucking company bearing his name in Natrona Heights, Pa. “The government needs to help us with the gas costs rising so we can at least budget for the coming week and know the price will remain stable.” Otherwise, he said, small trucking owners will go under and the remaining large companies “are going to tell you how it’s going to be.”
One other suggested option is to suspend the federal tax on motor fuels, which is $18.4 cents per gallon. The witnesses were appearing before the House Small Business Committee.
My view of government price controls is the same as my view of third-party presidential campaigns: Been there, done that, never again. The nation tried wage-and-price controls. President Nixon imposed them in 1971 — for 90 days, he said. It was a disaster.
The U.S. does not control the global economy. It can’t fix prices on oil. It can use public money to pay the difference between the world market price and the fixed price truckers want. Or it can tap the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Either would be foolish.
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Premature exit won’t be on Bush’s watch
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
General David Petraeus Tuesday recommended a 45-day pause in July to consolidate and evaluate once troop levels in Iraq are drawn down to 140,000.
“At the end of that period, we will commence a process of assessment to examine the conditions on the ground and, over time, determine when we can make recommendations for further reductions,” said the general in testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee. President Bush will most certainly accept that recommendation. Defeat won’t come on his watch.
It’s doubtful that any minds were changed — and certainly not the minds of any of the presidential candidates. Barack Obama said afterwards that he thinks the best the U.S. can expect there is a “messy, sloppy status quo.” Petraeus complained of Iran’s “destructive role” in supporting insurgents. Obama wants a “diplomatic surge” that includes more appeals to Iran.
Nothing changed for me. Withdraw on success.
Nothing changed on the outlook after November, either.
Any minds changed here?
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Real ‘crisis’? State’s leaders don’t deliver
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Lipstick this pig any way you wish. It was a disaster.
Georgia really does need to look beyond the current leadership under the Gold Dome. It’s dysfunctional. It’s the Clayton County Board of Education writ large.
The disconnect is at the top. The governor. The lieutenant governor. The speaker.
It’s not amusing anymore.
It’s not simply that they don’t get along. With some notable exceptions —- education notably among them —- they don’t deliver. And when they do, it’s often because there’s an army of high-priced lobbyists working both chambers and both sides of the aisle.
Take, for example, the crisis that required immediate legislative attention: The decision by the Georgia Supreme Court that the money we pay to educate children can’t be handed over to developers for other purposes.
For homeowners, the Supreme Court’s decision could be considered a good thing. When a development results in more children in public schools, somebody has to pay. If the taxes paid by the parents of those children are diverted to developers for other purposes, it’s taxpayers outside those tax allocation districts who foot the bills.
That unanimous court decision on Feb. 11 prompted an immediate declaration from Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle that the decision “has threatened a critical infrastructure and economic development tool for Georgia and we must act and develop a solution.”
Sure enough, on the final day of this year’s General Assembly —- while neither Cagle nor House Speaker Glenn Richardson could agree on tax relief for working Georgians or for the 93 percent of households owning cars and trucks —- the “crisis” wrought by a perfectly reasonable Supreme Court decision got resolved.
Georgians were given a chance to decide in November whether to change the state Constitution so that the money taxed to support schools can be given to developers. Why? Because developers and lawyers who get rich processing public debt lobbied heavily to give you that chance.
Some crisis.
One of the other pieces of business that got through in the final hours —- relaxing small portions of the state’s archaic certificate of need regulation —- represents a significant step in the necessary dismantling of this failed ’70s-era attempt to contain health care inflation. But it is maddening that the dispute is fought not in the context of any particular vision for reducing the market-distorting presence of government regulators in the health care industry, but because two well-funded adversaries (doctors and hospitals) brought their dispute to the Legislature.
In that sense, nothing changes. In large measure lobbyists set the agenda.
On transportation, for instance, an invitation to Georgians to vote ourselves a one-cent increase in the motor fuel tax is an example of what happens when legislators and interest groups perceive a gubernatorial leadership void. Some 50 groups, ranging from the Southern Environmental Law Center to those that profit from public spending, banded together to push legislators to “do something.”
The “something,” which fell three votes shy in the waning minutes of this year’s session, would have committed the state to a course of action that the governor opposed. It would, furthermore, have policy implications that got lost in the do-a-deal frenzy. Nobody knows, for example, whether the state’s needs are a penny or 10 pennies, and what role the private sector will play. Nor is there a statewide transportation plan with objectives that this approach would advance.
The waste of opportunities is all the more regrettable because the House and Senate are filled with energetic, creative and competent legislators who want to do something meaningful. Absent leadership and a uniting vision, they busy themselves tending the agendas of lobbyists.
It’s not that I want comity at the top. Worse than the squabbles that lead to nothing would be relationships in one-party government that allowed a handful of top leaders to go behind closed doors and agree on which laws to pass. Institutional tension is not the problem. Changing one personality is not the solution.
Anybody know what the leaders are trying to do with this government? I don’t.
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Obama’s lapel pin
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Barack Obama cost me a dollar.
Worse, a dollar that probably went to support moveon.org or some other organization that camps with the national Democratic Party.
I bet my colleague, Jay Bookman, that when Obama appeared before cameras for his Jeremiah Wright speech, he’d be wearing an American flag lapel pin.
I lost.
But on reconsideration, Obama might choose to wear it next time.
Those of you who take the Sunday AJC — and everybody should, of course — saw the story on the April 22 Pennsylvania primary. The accompanying photo was of a Latrobe, Pa., couple sitting at a diner discussing their upcoming vote. “How can I vote for a president who won’t wear a flag pin?” asked the woman, Nash McCabe, an unemployed typist.”I watch him on TV; I keep looking for that lapel pin.”
Obama’s getting the message. As the Associated Press reports, Obama has begun to pepper his speeches with expressions of patriotism. “I love this country not because it’s perfect but because we’ve always been able to move it closer to perfection,” he said in North Dakota.
In Montana: “It’s a country where … I’ve seen ordinary Americans find justice, where I’ve seen progress made for working families who need leaders who are willing to stand up and fight for them. That is the country I love.”
Obama has said he thinks actions, not lapel pins, demonstrate real patriotism. For enough Americans to represent the difference between victory and defeat in a general election, that’s a little ambiguous. That’s especially true of white, blue-collar types.
I have to admit that I’m one of them. A candidate who wants to be President of the United States should not be uncomfortable wearing a flag lapel pin or think it’s cheesy. Symbols matter.
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2008 session: Two stubborn, one impatient
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Reflections on this year’s General Assembly, and primarily the House of Representatives:
• From a conservative’s point of view, there’s real reason for hope, despite the fact that Gov. Sonny Perdue, Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle and House Speaker Glenn Richardson are an ill fit. Two are stubborn and one is impatient to be governor. Too bad. At their core, both the House and the Senate have a cadre of capable and eager legislators inspired to make a difference. There’s energy and a willingness to embrace new ideas in how best to design government. Education. Health care. The tax system. Regulation. The role of government.
• It’s a great time to be there. There’s something revolutionary about it, and it’s fun watching roles and leadership skills evolve. State Rep. Bob Smith (R-Watkinsville), for example, or State Rep. Jill Chambers (R-Atlanta) have a similar passion about transparency in government. Their efforts are individual and creative, like lab researchers trying to find a cure for an exotic disease. Their approaches may hit a dead end. But they — and others on other issues — are determined and spirited and willing to work hard. It’s refreshing.
• The same can be said of the now-defunct 216 Policy Group, a network of principled conservatives, many of them young and new, who read bills and applied a four-way test: Does it promote smaller government, lower taxes, personal responsibility and lead to “liberty and justice for all” ? The group, led by State Rep. Tom Graves (R-Ranger), struck an independent course sometimes at odds with House leadership.
Friday they threw in the towel and disbanded, their numbers having been whittled from about 30 last year to about a dozen this year. It’s a real loss. The majority does need to build around core principles and assess policy on that basis.
• He’s often the liberals’ favorite whipping boy, especially when he gets out front on legislation, but House Rules Committee Chairman Earl Ehrhart (R-Powder Springs) is developing real finesse as a leader. He smoothly helped guide passage of an important education bill introduced by Rep. David Casas (R-Lilburn) (HB1133) to give tax credits for gifts to a scholarship fund for children in need of an alternative to bad public schools. Ehrhart is the real-deal conservative.
• Against well-funded and intense opposition, Rep. Sharon Cooper (R-Marietta) and Sen. Tommie Williams (R-Lyons) advanced health care “certificate of need” deregulation further than has ever been possible in this state. Impressive.
• Though they’ll wander in the wilderness for another eight to 10 years, Democrats are in recovery. Some of the new and emerging Democrats in the House show real promise, among them: Kevin Levitas, Margaret Kaiser and Stacey Abrams, all of Atlanta, and Virgil Fludd of Fayetteville and Amy Carter of Valdosta. Republicans should not get too careless or cocky in power. This group tells me that Democrats will find the mainstream and be competitive again.
Among Democrats, I regret the retirement of Rep. Bob Holmes of Atlanta, an old friend and nemesis. As a friend, I regret that his taste of power as chairman of the Education Committee, at the end of the Democrat’s reign, came so late and was so brief. As one with whom I rarely agreed on policy, I was delighted that it came late and was brief.
• My appreciation of Rep. Larry O’Neal (R-Bonaire), chairman of the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee, grew exponentially this session, primarily for his handling of Speaker Richardson’s property tax legislation. It was a flawed bill, widely unpopular. O’Neal was loyal but determined not to push out a flawed bill, even one from the boss. Under pressure, he was fair and courteous, precisely the right leader for a red-hot issue.
• Two other chairmen deserve praise, too. House Transportation Committee Chairman Vance Smith (R-Pine Mountain) and Senate Chairman Jeff Mullis (R-Chickamauga) earned full pay this year and last as they patiently worked overtime to “do something,” as they’d been charged, about the state’s transportation needs, including financing.
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Cuba, wine whims, schooling
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Thinking Right’s weekend free-for-all. Pick a topic:
Progress after Fidel. Ordinary Cubans are now allowed to stay in the hotels they own. And buy an electric motorbike previously denied them because charging it up could collapse the power grid. A Cuban earning the average state salary could afford to stay in a four-star hotel once in 216 years.
Just as the JFK conspiracy theories die down, the Princess Diana conspiracy theories live on. An official inquest, which had cost $5.8 million through February, finds that, no, Prince Philip did not order her execution. So don’t expect to read any other spooks-did-it stories.
Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin approaches the profile-in-courage moment for Democrats. That’s the moment when they agonize publicly —- before raising taxes.
What in the world is my state doing regulating how much wine any resident can buy from any winery anywhere in the world? Republicans who run Georgia should question every regulation — many of which are simply to protect monopolies from competition — with the idea of getting rid of them altogether. A just-passed bill would let Georgians buy up to 12 cases a year from out of state without going through a distributor.
Rather than adding a $10 tax to vehicles to fund a state trauma network, the Legislature should just continue collecting the quarter-mill in local property taxes, amounting to about $30 per homeowner, that the governor had proposed eliminating. That’s $90 million. And by all means, never dedicate a tax to a specific purpose, lest the claimants think they are entitled to every penny raised. All funding needs should compete for every dollar. “I’m not interested in creating an entitlement program,” said Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle. Don’t. Directly, indirectly or otherwise.
Fairness, slowly, comes to home schoolers. Awaiting the governor’s signature is a bill that makes home schoolers who score in the 85th percentile on the SAT or ACT eligible for HOPE grants upfront.
Fulton County tax commissioner Arthur Ferdinand appeals a court decision directing him to distribute school funds to tax allocation district projects, like Atlantic Station. He’d declined to divert about $30 million, citing a Georgia Supreme Court ruling. Ferdinand’s right. The county may have to raise taxes on other property owners by $30 million, but the court decision was clear. It’s unconstitutional.
If you missed Sunday’s @issue section on the death of Martin Luther King Jr. 40 years ago today, go back and find it. It was spectacular. Beautiful photography and presentation and, even after 40 years, the first-person accounts of those intimately connected with the tragedy are compellingly told. If you read one thing about the 40th anniversary, make it that.
Amid the squabbling that is this year’s General Assembly, a moment of piercing truth from House Speaker Glenn Richardson. Faced with a series of resolutions urging this and that, including commuter rail to Macon, Atlanta and Athens, Richardson admitted: “We do these to appease people.” They have no force of law. They mean nothing. And they’re presented as uncontested resolutions, meaning there’s no point in talking about them. They’re legislative clutter.
Front-page headline: “Infighting may doom tax cuts.” If it does, Georgia needs new blood under the Gold Dome. Cagle and Richardson have one day to deliver. Today. Two years of games on tax cuts is enough.
One more reason not to prefer Barack Obama for president: He promises that Al Gore will have a major role in his administration addressing global warming.
If indeed Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle is a champion of charter schools, he surely could not have planted what State Rep. Jan Jones (R-Alpharetta) calls a “poison pill” in a bill that would expand the charter-school option for parents. Education could be one of the major successes of this session, though killing House Bill 881 would be a huge setback. It establishes the principle that the money follows the child and discourages local boards from stonewalling charter-school efforts.
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Reveal sperm bank daddies
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The discovery by three different teams of scientists of a genetic link to nicotine addiction and to a susceptibility to lung cancer is reason to cheer — offering, as it does, the prospect that early warnings with a simple, inexpensive test can prompt lifestyle changes and customized treatment options for those at risk.
The findings, based on gentic study of more than 35,000 whites of European descent in Europe, Canada and the U.S., are being published today in the journals Nature and Nature Genetics. Follow-up studies will be done on blacks and Asians and the results could be different. Scientists don’t know for certain if they have a set of variants in one gene or in three that are closely connected.
The research being reported today reveals that whites who smoke have a 14 percent chance of getting lung cancer. If they inherit the genetic variations from one parent, it’s 18 percent. If from both, it’s 23 percent.
Advances in genetic research that now make possible advance warning of family susceptibility to certain diseases reinforces my belief that children are born with the right to know the identities of the male and female who created them. That includes children born to and raised by single women, children put up for adoption, and children conceived with the help of sperm banks.
Only in the first instance — children raised by unmarried women — should the males be obligated to provide financial support. In that instance, of course, they should be tracked to the ends of the earth to be held accountable financially.
But even those conceived with the help of anonymous sperm donors have a right to know the donor’s identity at some point — no later than their early adult life. The reason is simple. Children have a right to know the medical history of the man and woman who gave them life.
Sperm donors report their medical histories, to the extent that they know. But the reality is that the donors are young men who may not be aware of family health problems until later in life. The children they help to create should have access to that information.
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Sit tight. Housing bailout’s coming.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid insists that it wasn’t an April Fool’s joke.
Too bad. It should have been.
The proposed plan of action to bail out lenders and homeowners at risk of foreclosure announced on April Fool’s Day proves two things. One is that when a sufficient number of voters engage in irresponsible behavior — buying homes they can’t afford and agreeing to high-risk adjustable rate mortgages — some government will bail them out. The second thing it proves is that in an election year, incumbent politicians will quickly and gladly spend your money to preserve their incumbency. That’s what the word “bipartisan” often means — as in “casting aside partisan differences, Senate Democratic and Republican leaders…” propose a bailout.
The bailout package will spend $200 million of public money to counsel homeowers at risk of foreclosure.
It will authorize $10 billion in tax-exempt bonds for local housing authorities to refinance subprime loans and $4 billion to local governments to buy foreclosed properties.
It will pick up a version of a proposal by Georgia’s Johnny Isakson, with a $15,000 tax credit for purchasers of foreclosed homes or new homes that have not sold.
Too, committees are working on plans to allow the Federal Housing Administration to insure $300 to $400 billion in additional mortgages.
With the $168 billion economic stimulus package that will send government checks of $600 to $1,200 to 130 million households approved earlier, no voter should have any reason to vote against any incumbent at the federal level. Unless, of course, the voter actually pays taxes.
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Road to traffic relief not paved with these pennies
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Fifteen miles, State Capitol to Cobb County.
A state trooper at the wheel.
Game time, 5 p.m. on Tuesday.
House Speaker Glenn Richardson, en route to his son’s baseball game, agreed with his driver to depart the Capitol at 3:45. “And we did.”
“I missed the first pitch,” said Richardson. “One hour and 30 minutes to get to Cobb County.
“How much money is it costing us in lost productivity?” Richardson asked. “What is it costing us right now to sit still in traffic?”
He was arguing before the Georgia House of Representatives, successfully as it turned out, for passage of a proposed constitutional amendment that would allow voters on a regional basis to tax themselves another penny. A House-Senate conference committee is now attempting to resolve differences between their two versions.
Traffic congestion is killing metro Atlanta. “It’s time to lead and do something” to buy congestion relief, said Richardson.
Whether the sales tax is the solution, or even a meaningful part of it, is an unanswered question.
Desirably, the state would have a statewide plan, and a regional approach would be consistent with it. For metro Atlanta and perhaps for other areas as well, congestion relief would be top priority. Solutions would be consistent with a state plan and would be chosen on the basis of the most relief for the dollar.
Absent that, we have a proposed amendment that has significant flaws.
A regional commission, which may or may not have any transportation planning expertise, “shall determine the amount of the tax to be levied, the maximum period of time the tax shall be levied, and the maximum cost of such projects for transportation purposes.”
There’s no time limit on the tax. It can be 10 years or 50. After a regional government determines which projects it wants to fund —- and those can be “public transit, rails, airports, buses, seaports, and all accompanying infrastructure and services necessary to provide access to those transportation facilities” —- county commissions have 45 days to opt in or out. If they do nothing for 45 days, they’re automatically recorded as having opted in. If they vote no, they have 15 days to reconsider.
Once they opt in, a tax referendum will be held. So a referendum in Cobb County could be rejected overwhelmingly by local voters, but if approved with sufficient margins in other counties, it would be applied —- 10 years, 50 years to Cobb residents as well.
The tax, once collected, becomes dedicated —- meaning that the General Assembly and the state have no real role to play in how it is spent. The General Assembly passes it along, ultimately, to the regional governments to spend. It is, in that sense, a dedicated fund of the sort that the General Assembly should never agree to create. All taxes collected, whether they are called taxes, fees or add-ons, should go into the state’s general fund to be spent based on priorities —- and whether specific expenditures are consistent with state goals.
Congestion relief for metro Atlanta, without question, should be the state’s top priority.
What is likely to happen with this particular penny, if added for “public transit, rails, airports, buses, seaports, and all accompanying infrastructure and services necessary to provide access” is that actual traffic congestion relief, measured and delivered, will compete for the same money available now.
The penny, therefore, is likely to become the funding source for “alternatives,” whether or not they provide actual congestion relief. Suddenly everything on some interest group’s wish list has a funding source.
That may be a policy choice the state wishes to make, but it should at least be constrained by a statewide transportation plan that keeps taxpayers from being forced to fund white elephant projects, like the commuter rail line from Atlanta to Lovejoy.
Certainly an argument can be made for more money for congestion relief. But the Legislature’s “do something” command should, in metro Atlanta at least, buy actual relief from traffic congestion misery.
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