Newspaper Page Text
8A
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 8, 2007
Underdog Democrats intend to be major players
A couple of weeks ago I
visited with Georgia
House Majority
Leader Jerry Keen (R-St.
Simons) to get his views
on the
upcoming
legislative
session.
Last week,
I stopped
by to see
what
House
Minority
Leader
Duß o s e
Porter
Dick Yarbrough
Columnist
yarb24oo@bellsouth.net
(D-Dublin) had to say about
things. Porter is co-owner and
editor of the Dublin Courier-
Herald, one of the papers in
the state that publishes this
column. He didn’t seem to
mind my grilling him, and I
didn’t mind doing it.
Porter is one of the genu-
Bad medicine: Hillarycare for the housing market
If you thought Hillary
Clinton’s government
takeover plan for health
care was bad, wait ‘til you
see what
she has in
store for
the hous
ing sector.
As always
with the
Clintons,
the mar
ket is the
problem
and Big
Nanny is
am _ 'SiB
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mi m
i
Michelle Malkin
Columnist
malkin@comcast.net
the solution. Unfortunately
for taxpayers, Hillary has
bipartisan company in the
Bush administration on this
issue. Their election season
prescription? Rewarding bad
behavior. Punishing respon
sible behavior.
There’s a painful credit
crunch under way. The cul
prit is the subprime mort
gage - a species of risky
home loans to buyers with
dubious credit and income.
Cash-rich lenders doled out
the subprimes hoping rising
home prices would compen
sate for any failed bets. But
when housing prices started
plummeting and interest
rates began rising, many
borrowers started defaulting.
Insolvency looms for count
less lenders.
Editor’s Note: The following let
ters were written in response to Larry
Walker’s column Dec. 1 regarding UGA
running back Herschel Walker.
I read and enjoyed your article. I have
always admired his ability and class. But
it was your mention of reading about
him in an old magazine article that
caught my eye. Recently, I managed to
“unstick" a balky drawer in an old dress
er in a spare bedroom, and in it I found
a Macon News sports section dated
Jan. 28, 1972. Though the reason for
keeping this section is long forgotten, it
is still fun to read. There was a lengthy
article on pitcher Vida Blue, regarding
his upcoming salary, and I quote:
“Vida Blue and Charlie Finley have
both come up with numbers. Naturally,
their numbers are different. Blue’s num
ber is $75,000. Finley's is $50,000, or
better than three times the $13,500 he
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THE LEADER TRIBUNE
109 Anderson Ave. Fort Valley. GA 31030
57114
inely nice people I have met
in politics. He no doubt has
some people who disagree
with his political positions,
but I can’t imagine that he
has many enemies. That is
quite a contrast for state
Democrat loyalists who had
to endure the disastrous
slash-and-burn political reign
of former State Democratic
Party chair Bobby Kahn.
During the Wrath of Kahn,
Democrats lost control of the
Legislature and the gover
nor’s office for the first time
in the state’s history. (Like
all loyal Southerners, I don’t
know what happened during
Reconstruction, and I don’t
care.) Today, the GOP enjoys
a 22-member advantage in
the 180-member Georgia
House of Representatives.
Porter says, “We allowed the
Republicans to define who we
were, and we forgot that a lot
Instead of letting lenders
and subprime jnortgage-hold
ers suffer the consequences
of their actions, politicians
and grievance-mongers are
riding to the supposed res
cue. In a supreme irony, the
very same champions of the
needy in the Democrat Party
who complain constantly
about the lack of “affordable
housing” are now fighting
tooth and nail to keep hous
ing prices high.
To “cure” the housing cri
sis, Hillary wants a 90-day
moratorium on foreclosures
for homeowners who default
on subprimes. In addition,
she wants a five-year freeze
on the monthly rate for sub
prime adjustable mortgages.
While she demonizes lenders
as predatory out of one side
of her mouth, the other side
of her mouth is floating legis
lation to protect lenders from
lawsuits and let them con
vert certain mortgages into
“stable, affordable loans.”
On top of all that federal
meddling, she proposes a $5
billion - yes, that’s “billion”
with a “b” - fund to “help
communities suffering from
high rates of foreclosures.”
Jesse Jackson is also stir
ring the pot. With subprime
victim sob stories flooding
the news and anecdotes of
minority homeowners in
paid his MVP and Cy Young Award win
ner last year."
In another article, regarding Hank
Aaron:
“If reports from an Atlanta newspaper
are true, Atlanta Braves Superstar Hank
Aaron will become the highest paid
player in baseball history with the sign
ing of a three-year $600,000 contract.”
Can you imagine the reaction today’s
players would have if they were offered
these terms? It boggles the mind. If
Vida Blue made $13,500, I don’t even
want to think what chickenfeed the rest
of us “ordinary” folks must have been
earning!
- Sally Greene, Warner Robins
I'm a big fan of Herschel Walker. He
is the best college football player I ever
saw in person and I really believe he was
the greatest college football player ever.
We saw him against Tennessee in 1981
of new people had moved into
Georgia that didn’t know of
our accomplishments.” He’s
being kind.
Today’s Democratic legisla
tors, by and large, are either
urban and minority, or white
and rural. Not a whole lot of
representation in the fast
growing suburbs. Porter says
that these divergent demo
graphics aren’t as big an
issue as they are made out to
be: “The main thing is that
we agree on the core issues.”
The “core issues” sounded
somewhat like the list Keen
had given me: water man
agement, health care and
transportation, but with two
notable differences.
“I want to see education
higher on the list in the next
session,” Porter said, “and
I want the Republicans to
restore the funding cuts they
made to public education
trouble, there’s no way the
shakedown king could stay
away. But the subprime
mess isn’t a result of ruth
less racial discrimination. If
anything, it’s the result of
too little discrimination by
lenders too willing and eager
to sign on people who had
no business taking on mort
gages. (And you know Jesse
Jackson would be scream
ing either way. The lenders
are damned if they lend and
damned if they don’t.)
Let«s boil this down to fun
damentals: Why should the
rest of us have to shoulder
the burden because some
buyers made poor choices,
overextended themselves and
bought more house than they
could afford? Why should
other business owners bear
the costs of lenders’ failed
bets? And why are falling
home prices such a catas
trophe to be “fixed” in the
first place? Sacramento Bee
columnist Daniel Weintraub
put it well:
“It is great news when the
price of energy, food, trans
portation, health care and
consumer electronics drops.
But for some reason it is bad
news when the price of shel
ter drops. . . . Shouldn’t we
be seeing stories filled with
anecdotes about formerly
priced-out middle-income
OPINION
and other critically impor
tant programs, like mental
health.” Porter says more
than $1.3 billion has been
cut from the state’s educa
tion formula over the past
four years, and with Georgia
sitting on a $1.4 billion sur
plus, now is the time to put
the money back. Otherwise,
he says, local school districts
have no choice but to ask for
more taxes to cover the ongo
ing shortfall.
Not surprisingly, Porter
doesn’t think much of House
Speaker Glenn Richardson’s
plan to eliminate property
taxes while expanding taxes
on sales, uses and services.
“Remember,” he says, “the
tax code says you can’t
deduct sales taxes if you
itemize your taxes, and more
than 40 percent of Georgians
do. If you eliminate prop
erty tax deductions, we will
families finally getting their
chance at the American
Dream?”
There’s another side of
the housing crunch equation
that’s not making it onto the
newspaper front pages and
presidential campaign web
sites. “For every house sold
because the buyer couldn’t
make the payments,”
Weintraub notes, “there is
a buyer on the other end of
that transaction who got a
good deal. And for every fore
closure, there are probably
10 buyers of nearby homes
who benefited from the gen
eral easing of house-price
pressure.” Bingo.
Fiscal conservatives ought
to be balking at Hillarycare
for housing. But President
Bush’s treasury secretary,
Hank Paulson, is singing a
similar tune. He proposed a
new safely net to stem the
tide of home foreclosures
through a bailout plan for
homeowners with bad cred
it scores. They’d be eligible
for relief from paying hun
dreds of dollars in additional
monthly payments when
their mortgage rates reset.
Those who have been respon
sible enough to maintain
good credit, however, will
be out of luck. In addition,
Federal Reserve Chairman
Ben Bernanke has proposed
during the season opener. Georgia won
44-0. He was very much a,man among
boys that day.
I remember watching Coach Bryant’s
show one Sunday during the 1981 sea
son. Bama lost to Georgia Tech that year
and tied Southern Mississippi. Georgia
lost to Clemson that season. There was
no SEC Championship game in that day
so both Georgia and Bama were unde
feated in the SEC and co-conference
champs. There had been some talk
of Bama playing Georgia in the Sugar
Bowl. Coach Bryant laughed and said
on his TV show, “If it is all the same to
everyone, I would just as soon wait until
that Walker fella leaves Georgia”. Bama
lost to Texas in the Cotton Bowl 14-12
and Georgia was defeated by Pittsburgh
24-20 in the Sugar Bowl. Clemson won
the National Championship game by
defeating Nebraska 22-15.
- Ricky Clemmons
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SATURDAY,
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be sending an additional one
billion dollars straight to the
federal government.” Porter
also doesn’t like the state
redistributing collected taxes
to the local governments.
Porter does agree with his
counterpart Keen that water
management is going to be a
major issue in the upcoming
session, and that it won’t
be as much a Democrat, vs.
Republican issue as a tussle
with the Atlanta suburbs. He
gives high marks to Atlanta
Mayor Shirley Franklin for
her efforts to fix the city’s
longtime water problems.
Interestingly, he sees a
developing alliance of North
Georgia counties, rural
South Georgia and the City
of Atlanta opposing the out
of-control (my term, not his)
suburban Atlanta counties
and their compliant, devel
oper-dominated county com
that government-sponsored
mortgage enterprises Fannie
Mae and Freddie Mac be
allowed to raise their loan
limits and have their debt
explicitly guaranteed by the
public dole.
Lawmakers on both sides
of the aisle are colluding
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missions. “Where are these
counties going to get their
water for new development?”
he asks. “They may think
they will be able to ‘borrow’
it from less-developed coun
ties, and that isn’t going to
happen.”
Suffice it to say, Porter and
the Democrats plan to be a
major influence in what hap
pens in the upcoming session.
Remember that Gov. Sonny
Perdue and the Republican
legislators finished the last
session in a major squabble.
Porter intends to keep his
disparate crowd united and
able to affect key legislation.
This is one nice guy who
doesn’t intend to finish last.
You can reach
Dick Yarbrough at
yarb24oo@bellsouth.net, 80.
Box 725373, Atlanta, Georgia
31139, or website: www.dick
yarbrough.com.
to protect the reckless and
keep home prices high on the
backs of prudent taxpayers.
Who’ll bail us out from this
perversion?
Michelle Malkin is author of
Unhinged: Exposing Liberals
Gone Wild. Her e-mail address
is malkinblog@gmail.com.
929-0624
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