About Dawson County news. (Dawsonville, Georgia) 2015-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 20, 2019)
PAGE 9A Send a letter to the editor to P.O. Box 1600, Dawsonville, GA 30534; fax (706) 265-3276; or email to editor@dawsonnews.com. DawsonOpinion WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 2019 This is a page of opinion — ours, yours and others. Signed columns and cartoons are the opinions of the writers and artists, and they may not reflect our views. Giving our new governor some needed fraternal advice Dear Gov. Kemp: I trust you are settled into your new job and are busy governing our beloved state. My purpose in writing is to let you know you aren’t in this thing alone. I am always available to dip into my deep reservoir of political knowledge whenever you need me. Heck, you don’t even have to need me. I’ll dip in, anyway. It’s what I do. First off, I am happy to see a fellow brother of the Nu Zeta chapter of Lambda Chi Alpha at the University of Georgia occupy the gover nor’s chair. The last one to do so was Joe Frank Harris, who overhauled public educa tion funding in Georgia, helped establish the World Congress Center and was an important part of the effort to secure the 1996 Centennial Olympic Games for our state. A good governor and a good man. Yours was a long and winding road to the governor’s office. You took a lot of heat for your commercials during your campaign, threatening the little dweeb who was think ing of dating your daughter as well as the round-’em-up pickup track commercial. Anyone who knows squat about politics knows you had to run hard to the right to secure the nomination. Fortunately for you, chief rival Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle developed a case of flap-jaw and showed us how sleazy politics can be. Speaking into a hidden cellphone, he admitted he got a bad bill passed that negatively impacted public education. He did so to pre vent your common rival, state Sen. Hunter Hill, from receiving a $3 million handout from Alice the Walmart lady, who seems to think that selling television sets and blue jeans gives her some divine right to tell us how to ran public schools in Georgia. Had he asked, I would have told Cagle to keep his integrity and let Hunter Hill, who has the charisma of a tree stump, have the money. No amount of dollars would make the guy exciting. What a lot of people failed to notice is that after you won the Republican primary, you moderated your message, which is how I am hoping how you will govern. If you don’t, we could be looking at a Democratic governor in the near future and not a George Busbee/Carl Sanders Democrat but someone who will lurch as far to the left as some right-wingnuts would have you lurch to the right. As you know better than anyone, that almost happened this election. Republicans would do well to heed the warn ing of House Speaker David Ralston. According to Greg Bluestein, of the Atlanta Newspapers, Ralston told a gathering of Republicans recently that the GOP advantage in the Georgia House has shrunk to 15 seats and noted that Republicans won that same number of seats in the last election by 55 percent or less. Those dis tricts, largely in the Atlanta suburbs, will be the focus of a fired-up bunch of Democrats, led by Stacey Abrams, in the next elections. Just six years ago, Republicans held a 65-seat majority in the House. Why the dwindling majority? Too many Republicans would rather be ideologically correct than be elected. Unless you do something to change that mindset, their wishes may come true in 2020. Speaker Ralston said it this way, “We must reject those in our midst who spend all their time — and I’m talking every second of their time — finding fault with other Republicans. We must reject those who would tear us apart from within to advance their own special agendas.” Amen. I don’t need to remind you that whoever has the majority after the next election will control redistricting in 2021 and that will determine who controls state government for at least the next decade. The ball is in your court. You will either be remembered as the governor who presid ed over the demise of the Republican Party in Georgia by catering to uncompromising wingnuts or as a leader who pitched a tent big enough for reasonable people who eschew wingnuts on either side of the polit ical spectrum to feel welcomed. I believe I know you well enough to think you will be the latter. At least, I hope so. I will let you get back to governing the state, but don’t hesitate to call if you need me. If I don’t respond immediately it will be because I am minding someone else’s business. You think being governor is hard? Try being a know-it-all columnist. I may sometimes be in error, but I’m never in doubt. Fraternally yours, Dick Yarbrough You can reach Dick Yarbrough atdick@dickyar- brough.com; at P.O. Box 725373, Atlanta, GA 31139; online atdickyarbrough.com or on Facebook at wvwv.facebook.com/dickyarb. DICKYARBROUGH Columnist "But I had to. It was a national emergency!" JIM POWELL I For The Times If there’s one thing you should learn, its best to always be kind to your mama Mamas, it seems, can be a sensitive bunch. Particularly mine. I don’t remember her being that way when I was younger, but she has become so in recent years. She claims I am not as compassionate as I could be. Case in point, she can’t hear most of the time. I am not sure if it is because of her age that her hearing is declining or it’s because she and my uncle normally have the T.V. volume at some obnoxious level that can prob ably be heard five miles away. “What did Cole eat after school?” she will ask. “He ate two orders of fries.” I said. She hears: “He was attacked by flies?” “He ate two orders of fries.” “Flies?” “Fries.” “Rice?” “No. Mama, he ate two large orders of fries. Fries. Fries!” I am practically yell ing by this point, straining for her to hear me. Mama takes it the other way. “I don’t think you should talk to me that way.” she says, a tone of indignation creeping into her voice. “I was not talking to you any way. I was talking so you would hear me.” “You were yelling.” “Mama. I told you four times he had fries and you didn’t hear me. I had to practically SUDIE CROUCH Columnist yell, and I still don’t know if you heard me or not.” She gives me the silent treatment for a few moments. She probably didn’t even hear what I said the last time. “I am so sorry I cannot hear that well. I am 74 years old, my hearing may not be the best,” she said. “Mama, you may need to get a hearing aid.” “I am not getting a hearing aid,” she said. “I don’t need one. I am just not hearing as well. And this phone is not the best. I don’t like it. But you could be a bit nicer and more compassionate. You know, one day you will be old and may need some patience, too.” I sighed. It wasn’t that I was impatient with her. I just felt like she needed to get her ears checked. When did her hearing start to decline? Had it been around the time she started going a bit slower when she walked? The woman that worked two jobs after she retired- often getting off work at one job and sleeping a few hours before going into her next job - now found grocery shopping too tiring. “Why do you get so angry when I can’t hear you?” she asked one day. “I don’t get angry,” I replied. I don’t. I get.. .1 am not even sure what I get. Sad, frustrated, scared - that’s what I get. My Mama, the crazy red head, was always able to hear every swear word under my breath as a teen and could live off coffee and nicotine for days. She was the one that would move the biggest mountain standing in the way between her Kitten and what ever I needed to do. And now, I am fearful as age seems to be creeping up on her. It scares me. It really does. “You do get angry,” she insists. “You need to remem ber I am your mama and you shouldn’t get angry with me.” I tried explaining I wasn’t angry again, but she had already decided I was. “Did you ever get angry at Granny?” I asked. When all else fails and you can’t win an argument, deflect. Mama felt silent again. “Well?” I pressed. “I didn’t get angry with her: I got frustrated.” “Uh huh.” “I did.” “And, why was that?” I asked. Before I asked the question, I knew the answer. Mama didn’t say anything. She didn’t have to. Granny refused to get a hearing aid. doing the same Mama had done, and accused her of rais ing her voice because she wouldn’t hear. “Didn’t she say you used to yell at her? Simply because she wouldn’t hear well. And you got so frustrated with her.” Hello pot. meet kettle. “I had a reason; there was nothing wrong with that old woman’s hearing when she wanted to eavesdrop.” True. Granny could hear a pin drop, or a bag of cookies open when she wanted to; the rest of the time, she exercised selective hearing and tuned us out. Something I think Mama may do, too, though she denies it. “You just need to remember one day, you will be old, and you will want Cole to be patient with you,” she said. Right, I thought. A few days later, Cole was trying to tell me something and I had to ask him to repeat himself. Three times. As he walked away, I heard him take a deep sigh. And so, it begins. Sudie Crouch is an award winning humor columnist and author of the recently e-pub- lished novel, "The Dahlman Files: A Tony Dahlman Paranormal Mystery." LETTER TO THE EDITOR Just tell us the truth By the time this letter is published it will be three weeks since the State of the Union Address delivered by President Donald Tramp. I wanted to take my time replying to it so I could do some thorough research. I found that there were three accurate state ments in the speech and 12 claims that were inaccurate, exaggerated or lack context or data to back up the state ment. I got this information through multiple sources including Politifact (a nonpartisan group which for the past 20 years has been fact-checking members both parties for truthfulness) as well as Forbes and NPR. So with 12 claims in the speech that were not accurate, I decided I would only focus on two. Immigration and the tax cut. Tramp again demonized immigrants from Central America and Mexico who are coming here seeking asylum. In his speeches he talks about specific crimes immigrants, states thousands of immigrants are committing crimes across the country. Tramp suggests that waves of immigrants equal more violence, but research doesn’t sub stantiate that message. Research on immigrants and crime finds that immi grants are not more likely than U.S.- bom individuals to take part in crime. Trump continues to stoke hate and violence against immigrants through his rhetoric. Or maybe he is just satis fying his “white nationalist” allies. He also has said there is a crisis at the border and that is why we need a wall. The only crisis is that of his own making. The administration has effectively shut down the asylum sys tem and is violating both U.S. and international law. The separation of children from their parents with no record of where the children were placed will go down as one of the darkest times in our history. So what about the so called “middle class tax cut?” Data shows that the majority of the money saved from the tax cut went to millionaires and bil lionaires, either in their individual taxes or the cuts in corporate taxes. According to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, a person making between $40,000-$50,000 a year will see a decrease in taxes of $560 or 1.4 percent. A person making $1 million will see a decrease in taxes of $60,600 or 3.3 percent. The key here is the percentage. Wealthy Americans are getting a larger decrease in percentage figures than the middle class. As for the corporations who saw their tax rate go from 35 percent to 20 percent, instead of giving bonuses and pay raises, they spent that saving on buy ing back their own stock. That was good for their investors, but less than half of Americans invest in stock, so they don’t see any advantage. What we were told was that these corporations would raise wages — well they haven’t. Tramp said in his speech that wages are rising at the fastest pace in decades. Not true: The average increase in wages in 2018 was 2.1 percent. For someone making $10 an hour, that means their hourly rate goes up to $10.21. There is a great deal of flap right now because people are not getting the refunds they got last year. That is because the Tramp administration ordered the IRS to change withholding (the amount your employer takes out of your check) for 2018 so it would appear in January of 2018 when we got our first paycheck after the law passed, that taxpayers were getting a bigger tax cut than they actually were. Because of that, when they filed this year, their refund was much less! Lies and deception — what Tramp does best. Hope we survive the next 22 months! Bette Holland Dawsonville
