READERS WRITE

House should tell Georgia Power ‘no’

I’d like to see the justification that state senators offer for their support of SB 31 [allowing Georgia Power to start charging ratepayers for unbuilt nuclear reactors]. What is this but another “backdoor” tax on customers for something that probably won’t be up and running until 2017? Why is it our obligation, as customers, to fund long-range projects of the utility companies anyway? I’m really not naive enough to think that we won’t get stuck with these costs sooner or later, but the idea that the propaganda promoting this legislation would be unconditionally accepted by Georgia citizens is condescending and demeaning.

Plus, I would like to know why this issue isn’t being handled by the Public Service Commission. Aren’t those elected officials charged with that responsibility, not the Legislature? It seems our General Assembly may be trying to usurp the PSC’s responsibility. I urge all House members to step up to the plate and vote no!

ANTHONY WILKINS

Carrollton

Wooten way off base on private schools

Jim Wooten (“On school vouchers, chief’s comp time,” @issue, Feb. 13) appears to want any parent to be able to place a child in any school at any time, without consideration of residence, tax rates, available facilities and personnel or district policies. How hopelessly naive and lacking in perspicacity.

State Sen. Eric Johnson’s bill, which Wooten cites, is aimed at encouraging public schools already strapped for funds to turn away nondistrict students while assuming that private schools would be hungry for “choice” students. To foster a rule that would reduce funds for public schools while paying for private school attendance is to promote chaos and undermine the primary institution for educating America’s children.

Here is the real “choice” that should rule: Parents should pay for additional costs of private schools or financially support and seek improvement they believe is needed in public education. Parents should understand there is evidence to suggest that public schools are at least equal to private schools when entrants present equal qualifications.

W. RICHARD HARGROVE

Watkinsville

THE STIMULUS PLAN

Stop looking for handouts, help yourselves

Letters to the editor in the AJC have been rather repulsive lately, with every other reader citing the bailout and where federal funds should be distributed. It’s no longer about what you can do for your country, but what the federal government can do for you. If the letters are any indication, we are already becoming completely dependent on Washington, D.C., in mindset if not quite in reality, though that is coming quickly.

To the American people, I beg of you: Please stop looking for handouts and look to help yourselves. That’s the only way to get our country out of the long-term mess that the vast expansion of government over the last decade has caused.

BEN SKOTT

Roswell

Stimulus bill is financial insanity

President Obama’s first legislative “victory” flies in the face of JFK’s famous, “Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.” The stimulus package is all about getting. It sickens me to hear local news reporting what Georgia will get in terms of dollars. Truth is, what we get is a reward for irresponsibility plus a message to our youth not to worry about going overboard inasmuch as the federal government will bail us out.

This spending insanity succumbed to by Congress is nothing more than a step toward rulership by government ownership, a political philosophy that amounts to a nonviolent form of Marxism that has failed throughout history. This mammoth spending bill will only cause our ticking economic time bomb to spin out of control.

CHARLES CUNNINGHAM

Jonesboro

Partisan vote problematic

The votes on the stimulus package are alarming indications of the state of representative democracy in America. While it is generally agreed that our economy is in crisis, urgently needing a stimulus package, the vote in the House of Representatives has twice split strictly along party lines.

In this government “of the people, by the people, and for the people,” we elect the members of the House to represent the people of their districts, not the Republican or Democratic political parties.

However, these two purely partisan votes clearly demonstrate that our representatives are more loyal to their parties than to their constituents.

The fact that our elected representatives are unwilling to work together across party lines to address such a major crisis is a fundamental failure of representative democracy. In the long run, that failure may prove to be an even greater crisis than our current economic ills.

CHET MCQUAIDE

Berkeley Lake