About Fayette County news. (Fayetteville, GA) 2009-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 8, 2025)
FAYETTE VIEWS A4 Fayette County News Wednesday, October 8, 2025 Letter to the Editor: School Board Says 'Bah Humbug' To the Editor: The Fayette County Board of Education is facing a cash shortfall this fall. The shortfall seems to be due to the inabil ity of the county tax assessor and tax commissioner to collect taxes on a timely basis. To cover some of the shortfall, FCBOE passed a resolu tion to take out a $25 million short-term loan. But the loan amount, the board announced at its September meeting, will not be enough to cover the teachers and school employees’ Dec. 15 paychecks. So, at the meeting, the board announced that the teachers and employees should be told that their Dec. 15 paychecks will be delayed until Dec. 31. Are you kidding? Are the teachers and employees being penalized for a Fayette County accounting problem? A two-week delay in a paycheck is a hardship for many and an inconvenience for all. A delayed paycheck has con sequences, especially during the holidays. Bills that are not paid on time accumulate late fees. Timely gift purchases may no longer be possible. Food for the holidays may not be affordable. All sorts of negative con sequences are possible without a timely paycheck. It takes a lot of audacity, or maybe plain thoughtlessness, to believe that delaying workers’ paychecks is an acceptable solution to a county financial management problem. Fayette County’s school board needs to re-examine its priorities. Teachers and school employees deserve better. Michael Cheyne, Fayetteville The Economy is Strong, So Where is the Worry? Cliches That Divide Us James Joyce’s book Ulysses contains over 50 pages with out the benefit or clarification of punctuation, just a run-on sentence. It was an exercise to compel the reader of those thousand-word sentences to use their heads for more than a hat rack. Here is the antithesis of Joyces’ attempt to move his readers toward imaginative expression and away from vacuous and, more than often, hurtful cliches. Here are but a few gems from our politicians and journalists: Unprecedented/game-changer- let me be clear-going forward-a wa keup call-reaching across the isle-political theatre-dog whistle- JAMES STUDDARD In a world that too often seems to have gone mad, where can one look for advice? How about none other than the face of Mad magazine, Alfred E. New man: “What, me worry?” The kids today probably won’t get that reference. Too many of us also don’t get economic statistics and what they mean in our daily lives either. This, despite the fact that knowingly or unknowingly, they affect not only the decisions we make today, but also the economic conditions we live with to morrow. Instead of spilling out a few hun dred words of economic garble, let’s boil it down to one word here. We’ll deal with “worry.” The stock market has bounced off April lows quite strongly, when tariff threats tanked the market and sub sequent easing of threats and new trade deals provided a bit more secu rity and clarity for investors. For stocks, the decision whether they go up or down is often boiled down to fear versus greed. Fear is just Wall Street’s word for worry. The long-term trend in stocks has been almost universally upward since the great financial crisis, save for a break during covid and a smaller downtrend when the Federal Reserve began hiking interest rates to deal with inflation that excess covid-era stimulus pushed into the system. That inflation didn’t just push up prices of our gas and our groceries. Most asset classes - stocks, commodities, houses, etc. - also have higher values today too. This has led to a bit of a divide be tween Wall Street and Main Street. The real divide, as it usually is when we speak of economic class warfare, isn’t between the streets one identifies with. It’s between who owns things and who doesn’t. Main Street middle-class folks who own their homes and have a 401K have prospered along with Wall Street for the past couple of decades. It’s the renters who might be fully employed yet have credit card balances and live paycheck to paycheck who have begun to feel left behind. Stimulus checks are wel comed, and CHARLIE HARPER sometimes even demanded, by the folks in that latter category. Who, after all, doesn’t like free money? The problem here is that their money is spent on temporary neces sities. It eventually ends up in the hands of those in the first class as rent, interest, or an investment return to those who own things. This is, in fact, how the rich (and the middle class) get richer. Meanwhile, when too much money is created at once, price levels adjust to the reduced value of newly printed dol lars. Thus, those things which are owned cost more because each dollar is worth less. Those who don’t own things see the gap between themselves and rich folks get bigger, and bigger. Their worries about falling even further be hind grow. For them, some of their worries are easing. A recent Morgan Stanley survey shows the number of consumers listing inflation as their top economic worry is now at the lowest level since 2022 - when the most recent inflation spike started. It’s still the top concern cited by more than half of respondents, but the fact that it is declining rapidly is a good sign. The decline in the perception of fu ture inflation is actually part of solving inflation. People act today based on what they think the future will be. When they fear prices going up, they buy more today to beat the price in crease, pulling forward demand and keeping prices high. When they don’t fear increases or expect decreases, they wait. This reduces demand and ulti mately, price increases. So, we’re almost done with worry, right? Oh no. This is economics. We call it “the dismal science” for a reason. Often the tradeoff for lower infla tion is higher unemployment. While parts of the economy are so hot they might be a bubble - big tech, data centers, anything that can generate electricity - other parts of the economy look to be softening. Even within tech nology companies, the tech itself is making companies more efficient, so they need fewer employees to do the same job. The Federal Reserve has what is called a “dual mandate.” They’re to fight inflation and keep prices stable. They are expected at the same time to keep conditions favorable to stable em ployment. These mandates, as noted above, are in direct conflict with each other. The Federal Reserve has made great progress on inflation by keeping interest rates high. It’s now their time to worry. They can either finish the job on inflation, or they can shore up the cost of investment and job creation by lowering interest rates. They worry they may get it wrong, either way. Those who haven’t enjoyed the run up in housing and stock prices worry they’ll either have to pay even more for groceries, or they won’t have a paycheck to use to purchase them. Dismal science, indeed. Government Shutdown 101 - Healthcare deep state-gaslighting-weaponize-virtue signaling-fake news-existential threat-toxic-cancel culture-slippery slope- circle back-sources say-tone deaf-viral-epic fail-doubling down-systemic inequality-climate justice-marginalized voices-equity over equality-moral compass-defund the po lice-billionaire class-intersectionality-drain the swamp-so cialist agenda-tax and spend-devasting-dark chapter-nation is grieving-and how about these insulting cliches! snow- flake-coastal elite-blue haired liberal-elitist liberal-gun nut- incel-boomer-bible thumper-karen-maga-and others. As compared with a remonstrance from a civic ethicist: A government is not good per se; it is but an agreement, and the agreement is only as sound as the honesty of its terms and the memory of its people. We do not suffer from a lack of ideology; nay, we suffer from a surplus of unex amined allegiance. It is the result of tolerated contradictions. If a policy enriches the few, yet burdening the many, it is simply not good policy, only a convenient extraction from it. Progress does not arrive through slogans, so let us not trade scrutiny for spectacle, institutional rot beneath power - let us, as citizens, before party, before tribe, be responsible not for defending power, but defining its limits. That paragraph rather defines and highlights Joyce’s thesis; namely, words hurt more than sticks and stone, yet the pain can be ameliorated with common courtesy and civil behavior from all. Close your eyes and think of Portland, Chicago, California, and other cities/states where vitriol and violence of person and party have become the rule and not the exception. Think of Charlie Kirk and, yes, George Floyd, and so many others. Beyond Words Most of you know my good friend Al. You’ve read about him before. Many times, most likely. This might refresh your memory: I usually write about our running adventures together. OK, that’s not entirely true. I’ve also written about things Al has said or done that I wouldn’t have believed had I not heard or seen them myself. But that’s not what this is about. This is about the side of Althat I have n’t let you in on before. This isn’t about Al the runner. This is about his other persona: Al the optometrist. Al has been practicing optometry for as long as I’ve known him, which is about the time the worldwide web "All Congressional Democrats want to do is enact radical left policies that nobody voted for." -President Trump about the Democrats and the shutdown. By the time this column runs, I am assuming that the U.S. government will be in complete shutdown mode. How could this happen (yet again) in the greatest nation in the world? The answer is that our nation is going through an extraordinarily stressful period. The Democratic Party is in complete and total disarray and is essentially leaderless after an inexcus able and avoidable 2024 election fi asco. Meanwhile, my former party, the GOP, has abandoned core tenants of governance in our balance of power democracy. The Republican Party has been replaced by the ReTrumpican Party. The Republican Party of old cared about attracting moderate voters, compromising, and being rea sonable. But the MAGA movement could not care less - you are either with us or against us. And, since most voters are not MAGA, the movement does not care about their opinions. Thus, almost half of all voters are anticipating a shutdown. However, In dependent voters clearly do not want it to happen. And these moderates are blaming MAGA (45 percent) rather than the Democrats (32 percent). But the ReTrumpican Party could not care less about those in the middle. Trump says the Democrats have way-out, leftist demands. What are these supposed radical points that Schumer and Jefferies want to discuss with Trump? Healthcare is the big ask. Democrats want the GOP to reverse drastic Medicaid cuts and Affordable Care Act finan cial reductions that were con tained in JACK BERNARD Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill (BBB), pushed through Congress with no Democratic input or support at all. The BBB reduced taxes for the wealthy and corporations by enacting draconian healthcare cuts. The Congressional Budget Office estimated that 11 mil lion of us would lose coverage as a re sult of the BBB, including Affordable Care Act recipients. It is estimated by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office that over $1 trillion will be cut from Medicaid alone, a program serving our neediest citizens. The BBB will also cause a re duction of nearly half a trillion dollars in Medicare cuts. It is predicted that there will be increased hospital clo sures and staff layoffs. There will be an enormous number of deserving Americans who will lose coverage due to the abhorrent work re porting requirements. These overly bureaucratic policies have not worked here in Georgia, and to expand this dysfunctional model nationally is ridi culous. Per one source, despite Gov. Kemp’s failure to acknowledge the facts about his Pathways Medicaid waiver: “The program has cost federal and state taxpayers more than $86.9 million while enrolling a tiny fraction of those eligible for free healthcare.” Furthermore, a report by the nonpar tisan Government Accounting Office indicated that Georgia’s Pathways pro gram “spent $54.2 million on admin istrative costs since 2021, compared to $26.1 million spent on healthcare costs.” So, this is what the Democrats want changed. These are the “radical left policies” that Trump says stand in the way of a budget shutdown deal. Having stated the above, Trump’s hatch man and White House Budget Director, Russell Vought, will and is using this shutdown to wreak further havoc on our government. OMB Direc tor Vought will certainly follow through on his threat to lay off (and often permanently delete) great numbers of federal workers in a wide range of programs approved by Con gress but not consistent with Trump SCOTT LUDWIG came to be. Al just turned 80 and finally made the decision it was time to retire. When, exactly, he wasn’t sure. Then, about the time of this year’s summer solstice, some thing happened that helped to clear things up. Al says it was “The most exciting moment of my professional career.” “Exciting” isn’t the word I would have used. I believe I’d go with something with more pizzazz; something a little more appropriate. Defining. One morning a 26-year-old man and his mother showed up at Al’s optometry office. The young man had a cane in one hand - and the hand of his mother in the other. The young man spoke up. He thanked Al for saving his life. Flashback to a decade ago: The young man, then 16, was See Ludwig, A5 See Bernard, A5 UP DUE TO Schumer IAmericans for Limited Government ©2025 Creators.com U.S. GOVERNMENT
