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The ADVANCE, May 12, 2021/Page 6A
(51?e Ahumtce
A free press is not a privilege but
organic necessity in a great society.
—Walter Lippmann
COMMENTARY
out of
CONTEXT
A compilation of quotations on a variety of
issues by national, state and regional writers,
well-known personalities, just plain everyday
people and from various publications
collected by the editors of THE ADVANCE.
Quotes for our Times:
Will Alexander, retired U.S. Marine who now
works in real estate and is a former print jour
nalist: We’re being changed into a nation of
‘fleas’.
"The will of man is not shattered but soft
ened, bent and guided;" wrote De Tocqueville
in Democracy in America (1835). "(M)en are
seldom forced by it to act, but they are con
stantly restrained from acting. Such a power
does not destroy, but it prevents existence; it
does not tyrannize, but it compresses, ener
vates, extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till
each nation is reduced to be nothing better
than a flock of timid and industrial animals, of
which government is the shepherd."
Or a jar of trained fleas.
We need to fight like crazy to jump outside
the flee trainer's jar - to keep a firm hold on
individual and national liberty. We can't af
ford to wait for the next election. We are being
changed!
Monica Showalter, writer for American
Thinker: Kansas bans ballot-harvesting and a
slew of other Democrat election-rigging tricks,
overriding leftist governor veto.
The Kansas measure, coming so closely on
the heels of the Georgia measure, signals that
something big is in the wind, and it's quite likely
more states will follow. Nobody wants to be an
other California, run by incompetents from only
a flabby single party, with wokesters in charge
and residents and tax revenue fleeing.
This Kansas move shows signs of American
renewal and vigor. It's happening — a wave
that will only build.
Byron York, chief political correspondent for
The Washington Examiner: No, there's no man
date to remake America.
Back in 1993, when then-first lady Hillary
Clinton was pushing Congress to pass a uni
versal health care bill, Democratic Sen. Daniel
Patrick Moynihan warned her that she needed
big majorities for something so momentous
and far-reaching. Landmark bills don't squeak
through Congress with a single-vote majority....
Back then, Moynihan's Democratic Senate
colleague Joe Biden would likely have agreed.
But today's Biden Democrats believe the big-
majority standard no longer applies. Why not
remake the United States on the strength of a
vote or two in the House? Why not remake the
U.S. on a 50-50 tie in the Senate, broken by the
vice president?
Maybe Democrats can pull it off. But may
be the old rules — and common sense — still
apply."
J.B. Shurk, writer for American Thinker: "Our
country was founded by geniuses, but It's be
ing run by idiots," said Senator John Kennedy of
Louisiana.
Establishment Republicans keep insisting,
"Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater."
But who has been watching the baby? Ameri
can independence was a singular moment for
liberty, and enemies of freedom have worked
assiduously to smother it ever since. While Re
publican leadership has for decades remained
preoccupied with making sure the bathtub is
of the finest porcelain-enameled cast iron and
ensuring that the water is neither too hot nor too
cold, the political left has gleefully absconded
with the newborn, so that it may finally abort
two hundred and forty-five years after delivery!
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Republicans No Longer
Fazed by Big Spending
Once upon a time, Joe
Biden’s spending proposals
would have launched mass
demonstrations in opposition.
Little else would have been
talked about in conservative
media, and ambitious
Republican politicians would
have competed with one
another to demonstrate the
most intense resistance, up to
and perhaps including chaining
themselves to the U.S. Treasury
building in protest.
In 2009, President Barack
Obama created a spontaneous,
hugely influential conservative
grassroots movement on the
basis of an $800 billion stimulus
bill and a health care plan
estimated to cost less than a
trillion. In 2021, Biden is
proposing to spend about $6
trillion in his first three big bills,
and he can barely create more
interest than the debate on
wearing masks outdoors.
The conventional wisdom
was that after the free-spending
Trump years, Republicans
would snap back to being deficit
hawks when out of power.
There’s been some of that, but
the relatively muted reaction to
Biden’s almost
incomprehensible spending
ambitions is testament to the
fact that, no, Republicans
simply aren’t as interested in
fiscal issues anymore.
The party has changed and
would much rather talk about
the border than the budget, and
cancellations than
Congressional Budget Office
scores. Of course, no
Republicans will vote for
Biden’s proposals and all will
strenuously object, but that his
plans won’t engender the fierce
reaction they would have 10
years ago is yet another way in
which the Overton window has
shifted on deficit spending.
What happened? The short
answer is Donald Trump.
He demonstrated in vivid
fashion that as the GOP
coalition had become older and
more working class, it didn’t
care as much about spending
restraint or entitlement reform
as the party’s leaders had
presumed.
Trump taught Republicans
how to relax and love
expansionary fiscal policy. By
2019, he was running a nearly
$1 trillion deficit at a time of
peace and prosperity, and of
course the pandemic blew the
lid off in 2020.
After that, it’s difficult for
the party to come back and
sound the klaxons again about
the dangers of red ink.
Besides, the klaxons have
issued false alarms before.
Republicans realized that past
dire warnings of imminent
economic harm from deficit
spending — rising interest
rates, spiking inflation, a debt
crisis — haven’t panned out.
Indeed, this is one reason
the center-left now believes all
such admonitions should be
ignored, and there’s almost no
upper bound on deficit
spending.
Meanwhile, Republican
politics has become focused on
culture war issues, another
change symbolized by Trump.
These issues hit close to the
bone in a way that fiscal matters
don’t. Conservatives worry
about their free-speech rights
getting trampled, about schools
distorting the minds of their
children, and about the
country’s history getting
redefined — and it’s hard to get
them to care more about a
balance sheet than these other,
more definitional questions.
None of this means that
Biden has a free hand. He will
presumably be less successful in
getting all that he wants with
his latest two roughly $2 trillion
spending bills. Even in a
permissive environment,
natural political exhaustion
with the high levels of spending
will kick in, and it’s always more
complicated when tax increases
Please see Lowry page 1OA
GRITTY
Biden’s Era of
Big Government
When I began
my work 25 years
ago, my vision for
fixing our poor,
broken communities
was driven by my
belief in America and
what made it
successful.
It’s what I call the
3 C’s: the principles of
Christianity, the virtues of capitalism and
the rule of law outlined in our Constitution.
After the civil rights movement, big
government was deemed necessary to turn
poor communities around.
When then-President Johnson affixed
his signature to the Civil Rights Act of
1964, the given assumption was that,
although there was new law protecting
freedom — civil rights — for all, low-
income Black Americans were not prepared
to be free and capable of being free.
A new era of big government ushered
welfare-state socialism into these
communities.
Despite tens of trillions of federal
expenditures targeted toward these
communities since the 1960s, poverty
rates are practically unchanged. But major
new problems were created — mainly the
decimation of families. Single-parent
homes and out-of-wedlock births have
tripled.
Today’s Democrats want to blame
racism for the persistence of problems in
low-income communities. In some respect,
they are right. It is their own racism that
refused and refuses to accept that low-
income Americans can and must be free.
Now, today, President Biden and his
party aspire to the opposite of what I have
fought for.
Instead of wanting to bring the
capitalism of the healthy parts of America
to the broken parts of the country, they
want to bring the failed welfare-state
socialism of the broken parts of the country
Please see Nitty page 8A
By Star Parker
COMMENTARY
Georgia’s Growing Labor Crisis
We all know that Georgians have
an incredible work ethic and want to
work. As we continue to recover
from this pandemic-induced
recession, we are hearing from a
growing chorus of small business
owners, agricultural leaders,
managers in retail, manufacturing
and nearly every industry sector
across the country concerned about
the lack of available workforce.
In 2020, Georgia saw a record
40% annual increase in the number
of economic development projects
announced. Our economy has
quickly rebounded thanks to a
balanced pandemic strategy coupled
with record-high consumer
spending, including everything from
cars to houses. Retailers cannot keep
certain items in stock and factory
orders are piling up. Because they
cannot find labor, businesses are
starting to turn down orders, raise
prices, and some are even considering
closing permanently. Many
restaurants are only offering drive-
through, pick-up service, not because
of COVID, but because they cannot
find enough workers to support full-
scale operations.
Our job creators are doing their
part. They are raising wages, offering
incentives, competitive benefits,
shift flexibility and work-from-home
options when possible. In addition,
job fairs are popping up on every
corner. The truth is that there has
never been a better time to enter the
workforce than today. Employers are
offering more to entry level
employees than ever before.
Here, over 231,000 Georgians
are on unemployment, but over the
last 90 days, Georgia businesses have
reported at least 406,000 job
openings. Getting those men and
women connected to employers and
back to work is the first step. Second,
we must address long term labor
shortages in the agriculture,
hospitality and high-tech sectors
while helping our students prepare
for a very different job market when
they graduate. Compared to previous
years for the same time, the current
number of job postings is nearly
double, proving that our conditions
are unprecedented and require
creative solutions.
In the short-term, we suggest
that the state of Georgia:
1. Suspend additional federal
unemployment benefits and direct
available funds to a statewide job
signing bonus program or other
back-to-work initiative that helps
match jobs to job seekers. This will
incentivize Georgians’ return-to-
work efforts.
2. Require unemployed
Georgians to actively seek
employment while drawing benefits.
3. Redirect federal funds to
support our technical colleges and
universities in rapid re-training and
certification programs that upskill
our labor force for new economy
jobs. Of course, we should allow
these Georgians to continue
Please see Guest page 10A