Newspaper Page Text
Wednesday, March 1,2023
FAYETTE VIEWS
A4 Fayette County News
Let’s Get Serious on
Balancing the Budget
“(A) once-in-a-generation tax reform for American fam
ilies and businesses alike.” -Rep. Drew Ferguson concern
ing the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) of Dec. 2017.
Ferguson is now on the House Budget Committee, the
Ways and Means Subcommittee on Select Revenue Meas
ures (taxation), and chairman of the House Ways and
Means Committee's Subcommittee on Social Security (a
socialist program, although he denounces “the horrors of
socialism”).
He complains constantly about “the radical Left’s out-of-
control, big government spending,” saying we must “re
verse course”... but never gives specifics as to what should
be cut. This is much like GOP Pres
idential candidate Alf Landon did
when he ran against Social Security
and FDR in 1934 (https://www.dis-
sentmagazine.org/article/alf-lan-
don-and-social-security-reform).
Rep. Ferguson solidly supported
Trump, refusing to vote to impeach.
Under Trump, TCJA changed the
tax situation for corporations and
the wealthy like the former Pres
ident. It also was a major factor in
raising the national deficit to new heights.
The Congressional Budget Office projects that the federal
deficit will increase to 10 percent of GDP by 2043-2051,
from 4.2 percent of GDP in 2022
(https://www.cbo.gov/publication/58340). That should
be unacceptable to Republicans, Democrats, and Inde
pendents. And both parties are to blame.
Last year, the deficit increased $2,540 billion under Biden
(https://www.usgovernmentspending.com/federal_defi-
cit_chart). However, it was even higher under the last year
of Donald Trump ($3,132), as shown in the chart below.
Federal Deficits in Billions:
2012
2013
2014
2015
2016
$1,077
$640
$485
$442
$585
2017
2018
2019
2020
2021
$665
$779
$984
$3,132
$2,775
Chart from usgovemmentpending.com
Obama was in office 2009 through 2016. Under Bush,
the GOP understandably pushed the passage of a recovery
package to pull us out of a recession. Thus, in 2009 the
deficit reached $1,413 in Obama’s first year. The annual
deficit then went down from his first term, but we still ran
a $585 billion annual deficit by the end of his second term.
Economic theory indicates that during periods of a
strong economy our national debt should be reduced, not
raised. However, as discussed below, the Trump tax cut
happened during a period of a strong economy, causing
the national debt to increase.
Trump took over in 2017... and the deficit rose dramat-
See Bernard, A6
JACK BERNARD
Everyone’s a Boy Scout
| ‘ve learned a lot of things as I’ve gotten older. For ex
ample, flossing daily isn’t just a suggestion. Too much
red meat in your diet isn’t particularly healthy. Nice
guys truly can finish last. Your parents are always right.
Nothing dramatic here. I’ve been hearing them my
entire life. I just never expected all of them to be true.
But I’ll be the first to admit: I should have done a better
job listening - before it was too late.
However, there are some things I’ve learned as I’ve
gotten older that no one ever mentioned. And even if
they had, my brain probably wouldn’t have acknowl
edged them anyway. They are the
things that you won’t find out until
- sigh - it is indeed too late.
For me personally, I’m refer
ring to this little jewel: When you
get older, suddenly everyone is a
Boy Scout.
I’ve never been one to ask for
anyone’s help. If I’m starving or
thirsty and don’t have any money
with me, I won’t ask anyone - not
even a friend - for a small loan.
If I’m loading a heavy piece of furniture onto the back
of my truck, I’ll do everything I possibly can to do it my
self before I’d ever ask for anyone’s help.
If I ever got lost when I was younger - OK, so maybe
that still happens -1 would never stop to ask for direc
tions (Then, when technology came along, I said good
riddance to those oversized maps that were impossible
to fold. Incidentally, I threw those unfolded maps away
before I’d ever ask anyone to refold them for me).
That said, imagine my surprise when these kinds of
things started happening:
•After finishing a 12-minute run for a stress test, the
technician administering the test rushed to my side,
grabbed my elbow, and helped me step off the treadmill.
She was a middle-aged woman that couldn’t have
weighed more than 90 pounds.
•As I was loading two-dozen concrete blocks onto the
back of my truck, a man walked up behind me and asked
if he could do it for me. He couldn’t have weighed more
than a buck 10 and was at least a generation older than
me. And he walked with a cane.
As I said before, when you get older, everyone’s a Boy
Scout. There have been several more incidents like these
- where it appears I’m not capable of performing a sim-
SCOTT LUDWIG
Local Governments Building
Barriers to the American Dream
I n recent weeks, I’ve been looking
at Georgia’s lack of affordable
housing. The problem, articulated
by Gov. Brian Kemp and the state’s
economist, Dr. Jeffrey Dorfman, is
that Georgia does not have enough
housing units for the workforce we
currently have, much less for the em
ployees we expect to add with eco
nomic development wins.
This has become especially acute
in rural Geor
gia, where
much of our re
cent business
recruiting ac
tivity has been
focused.
New res
idents bring
new ideas with
them, and often
question why
things that “have always been done
this way” are still being done this
way. Those invested in and prosper
ing from the status quo often don’t
like having to answer these ques
tions, even if the local economic pie
is growing.
In fact, many local governments
at the city and county level are erect
ing barriers to housing expansion.
They generally do so under the guise
of “protecting our property values.”
That’s getting close to saying the
quiet part out loud, in that they want
to keep prices high.
High prices, to too many, means
self-selecting the “right” neighbors. It
also means keeping too many work
ing people out. The term for these
practices is called “exclusionary zon
ing.”
There are quite a few levers
pulled at the local levels that build
barriers to attainable housing op
tions. They start with the zoning pro
cess itself, with minimum lot sizes,
minimum square footage, minimum
number of bedrooms... lots of mini-
mums. The result is that many are
forced to choose among houses
and/or lots that are larger than they
want or need.
The next layer is “design stan
dards.” These are additions to build
ing code that supposedly add to the
“quality” of the home, but, in reality,
add more expensive materials and
construction methods which increase
the home’s cost, by design.
What does this mean in plain
English? Take a home that might
work for an average Georgian want
ing to take their first bite at the
American Dream. They may only
need one or two bedrooms, a small
yard, a parking pad to park their car,
and the other basics of a home.
Now let’s make them have a mini
mum acre lot, refuse to allow them to
have a slab foundation, require that
their home have three bedrooms, a
garage, and be made of brick or ma
sonry siding. These are actual re
quirements being added in various
locations not by HOA covenants, but
by governments covering their entire
jurisdiction. It’s quite easy to add 10s
of thousands of dollars to the mini
mum home in an area by adding just
a few of these requirements.
Then there are impact fees that
vary widely across Georgia. Some
areas have none at all, while others
are implementing and increasing
them regularly, though few have re
quirements that these fees be spent
to mitigate the “impact” the new res
idents add to local infrastructure.
There’s also a too-often subjective
interpretation of building codes that
can add costs, a few hundred dollars
at a time. After adding 10s of thou
sands of dollars in design standards,
a few hundred dollars here and there
seems trivial, but it all adds to the
final cost.
A recent survey of builders by the
Georgia Public Policy Foundation re
ported that the costs of regulation at
the federal, state, and local level rep
resented 27 percent of the final cost
of housing in Georgia. While no one
is claiming this 27 percent can or
should be completely eliminated, a
hard look at the costs of these regu
lations versus the benefit is in order.
The state legislature will be de
bating a few bills this year that will
put many of these regulations under
the microscope. House Bills 514 and
517, sponsored by Rep. Dale Wash
burn of Macon, have received the en
dorsement of the Georgia Chamber
of Commerce. They seek to eliminate
the exclusionary zoning practices of
using design standards to inflate
home construction costs, as well as to
put some guardrails on local impact
fees to ensure they’re not used as
general operating funds.
You can expect local governments
to push back, screaming “local con
trol” loudly and frequently. A re
minder to them that the 10th
Amendment regulates power to the
states, or to the people.
There is no purer form of local
control than an individual choosing
what kind of home suits their needs,
for property they own. Adding costs
and forcing home choices that an in
dividual does not need is not a func
tion of “limited government.”
It’s an artificial barrier to the
American Dream.
CHARLIE HARPER
Hooters in the Holy Land
P resident Biden, who is contem
plating another run, is scroung
ing around his garage, digging
through his box of past President gim
mickry for an idea, something to give
his sinking performance ratings a
boost. Nothing of note, but then,
voila! Deep down at the very bottom
of the box marked, “Classification,
Top Secret,”
was a copy of
Bill Clinton’s
plans to open a
Hooters in
Gaza.
Joe was
giddy; hur
riedly, he
phoned up
Nancy and
asked if she
would be inter
ested (since she was out of work) in
the Hooters project. Nancy too was
giddy, and anxious to get away from
the homeless who were edging closer
and closer to her house.
My man in Palestine relates the
following in his written report. “Imag
ine Jim, a flaxen blond, Hooters’ girl
donned in shorts up to her modesty, a
skin-tight half-halter top which barely
covers her uplifted, you-know-
what(s). Most of the (ogling) cus
tomers are robed in swathed head
gear. Some simply order a beer,
others, on the other hand, might
simply want to blow the place up.
“Palestinians, being accustomed
to skimpy meals, would look askance
at a dressed burger. A dressed burger
for a desert nomad would be bread
and meat. And Jim, no Palestinian
has ever seen a semi-exposed breast
and lived to tell about it. Palestinian
women, for hundreds of years, prac
ticed the art of looking homely,
chaste, and covered up. The closest a
Palestinian woman gets to ‘sexiness’ is
in the verses of the somewhat sala
cious Palestinian poet, Mahmud Dar-
wich, and only then in stifled giggles.”
Hooters girl types are rather
scarce, so Nancy trots over to Jerusa
lem to round up some Jewish girls,
who are familiar with Gaza politics,
atavistic customs, and the occasional
suicide bomber. “Hey,” exclaimed one
of the Jewish waitresses, “a dinar in
hand is worth two shekels in the
bush.”
Grand opening: Much fanfare. The
Intifada are in town and, as usual, are
a little rowdy. But all in all, a good
start on the Gaza strip. Nancy, beam
ing with all the effervescence of an
egotist, explained that she was on a
mission for the President to promote
bilateral expansionism.
This was misinterpreted by both
Hamas and Fatah, which prompted
the hurling of French fries from both
directions. To quell the food fight,
Nancy screamed, “Let’s eat.” Unfor
tunately, Nancy ordered the Neta
nyahu burger deluxe, named after the
President of Israel, thus the French
fry kerfuffle recrudesced.
The Gaza press declared it “the
mother of all food fights.” The rub for
the Palestinians was that there was
not one burger, not one bowl of chili,
or a cup of camel stew named after the
Palestinian President, Mahmoud
Abbas.
During all this un-diplomatic
ruckus, a radical member of Intifada
cruised by and assumed there were
some high-level Israeli muckety-
mucks inside. He tossed a pound of C-
4 onto the restaurant patio. As luck
would have it for Nancy and the girls,
the C-4 contained the wrong mixture
of 10 SAE motor oil and only fizzled
out with a bangless whimper. Ho
wever, it spooked the camels out
front, whereupon the horrified hump
backs stampeded straight through the
restaurant, pretty much wrecking the
joint.
As for Hooters, well, it opened and
closed in one day. Undaunted though,
the owners vow to relocate in a quieter
part of town. “That’s about it, Jim.
Over and out in Gaza.”
See Ludwig, A5