About Fayette County news. (Fayetteville, GA) 2009-current | View Entire Issue (March 1, 2023)
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
