Taxpayer bonuses mischaracterized
In his recent article, “Ga. needs an updated strategy for this century” (Opinion, Oct 1), Jay Bookman cites the facts that “Georgia has the lowest tax burden on its citizens of any state in the nation” and, Georgia has the “eighth-highest rate of federal dependency in the country.” He translates these facts into needs, and their attendant massive spending and higher taxes. What Bookman failed to translate correctly is that our state government has the done the best job of creating the lowest tax burden on its citizens in the United States, and eighth best at returning Georgians’ federal income taxes back to the state.
GARY MARGOL, MARIETTA
Justice in Georgia: Uh-oh, SpaghettiOs
The buried point in the news reports last week about the Gainesville woman being jailed for more than a month for allegedly eating SpaghettiOs in her car is that she was re-incarcerated because she couldn’t make bond. Georgia is one of those states where as soon as someone is arrested, there’s a line of interested parties ready to start collecting cash from the arrested person.
The bail bondsman is at the start of the line, and behind him are others such as private agencies that provide court-ordered services like drug or alcohol “counseling,” private probation companies, court fees, etc. It is a corrupt system that revolves around parasitizing the poor. This is a flagrant case, but it represents the general condition in which a minor transgression or even a dumb arrest can turn into debtor’s prison.
DEAN POIRIER, DULUTH
Teachers get trial; bankers get break
While appalled by the nationwide test-cheating scandals, it is impossible not to note that classroom teachers, who rightly feared for their jobs, face 35 years in prison on conspiracy charges, while grifting bankers who laundered money for terrorists and drug cartels were never criminally charged. Instead, their banks were fined — big wrist slaps — and nobody went to jail.
Perhaps the greater guilt lies with the likes of U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan, his boss and others who promulgate the test score fetishes, measuring little more than parental income and home language, as gatekeepers to employment and promotion for students and teachers alike. If we consider teachers to be little more than bank robo-signers, we see the issue in the proper perspective. First-graders know what “no fair!” is.
RICH GIBSON, SAN DIEGO, CALIF.
Did lax gun laws endanger Obama?
Thoughts from an observer outside of Georgia: Is it a consequence of the newly relaxed gun laws in Georgia that apparently someone with a criminal background can become a security guard and carry a firearm (“Secret Service chief on hot seat,” News, Oct. 1)? That is a much larger story than the fact he was also allowed to be in an elevator with the president.
THOMAS M. HINES, NARRAGANSETT, RI.
