Newspaper Page Text
18
January 19, 1995
Governer Miller outlines multi-year
pay increases for Georgia teachers
By Didk Pettys
ASSOCIATED PRESS Writer
ATLANTA
(AP) Teachers and college pro
fessors would get 6 percent pay
raises every year for the next four
years under a strategy outlined
by Gov. Zell Miller on Thursday.
But taxpayers would have to wait
a year to see the reduction he has
promised in the sales tax.
Miller outlined his long-range
goals for Georgia and the specifics
of a $10.7 billion budget proposal
during an hourlong speech to leg
islators.
Republicans criticized him for
failing to put welfare reform on
the agenda. And some Democrats
said there may be better ways to
give taxbreaksthan removing the
sales tax from groceries.
In his second-term inaugural
address three days ago, Miller
announced he hoped to push Geor
gia teacher salaries to the nation
al average before leaving office in
1999, but he did not say how he
would do it.
“Do a litile arithmetic with
me,” he told lawmakers Thurs
day. “Our annual teacher’s salary
is about $5,000 below the national
average. If you will join withmein
committing to a 6 percent increase
each and every year for the next
four years, Georgia will reach the
national average by the end of this
administration.”
In the Republican response to
the speech, Senate GOP leader
Arthur “Skin” Edge of Newnan
said “devoting attention and fund
ing for education is a very lofty,
worthwhile goal .... (but) we need
Jeffrey’s ‘balanced’ views explained
ATLANTA
(AP) Fired House Historian
Christina Jeffrey said Wednes
day she never thought it was a
wood idea to introduce the views of
Nazis or the Ku Klux Klan into a
course about the Holocaust.
Mrs. Jeffrey said that when
shewasasked toreview the course
on the Holocaust for the U.S. De
partment of Education, her judg
ment was that to be called bal
anced, the course would have to
include the unpopular points of
view.
She didn’t mean balance in
the sense of ideas being equal,
“but from the sense that in the
academic endeavor, you want
more than just the argument that
you're trying to get across,” Mrs.
Jeffrey said Wednesday in an
interview on ABC’s “Good Morn
ing America.”
Mrs. Jeffrey, an associate pro
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to see more efforts directed to
ward public safety, welfare re
form and these other problems as
well as the education effort.”
Miller said later he has aimed
a major blow at crime by passing
the toughest criminal punishment
law in the nation, and is waiting to
push vigorous welfare reform un
til he sees what reform powers the
new Congress will give states.
In the speech, Miller said he
fessor of political science at
Kennesaw State College in Geor
gia, was fired by Gingrich late
Monday night after indications
that The New York Times planned
to publish a story about the con
troversial remarks she made in
1986 about the proposed course.
When she spoke to Gingrich
on the telephone Monday night,
she said, she urged the speaker to
keep her in the post, but he told
her the timing was not right for a
battle with Democrats and the
national media.
“It's a pretty devastating
thing,” the 47-year-old professor
said. “I was a child in Germany
afterthewarandlwasat Dachau,
and I know that the Holocaust
happened, and I think that every
body should know that history
anditshould never happenagain.”
Mrs. Jeffrey said she is not
angry at Gingrich, the media, or
will not begin fulfilling a cam
paign pledge to phase outthe sales
tax on groceries until 1996, when
he will begin reducing the 4 per
cent tax by 1 percent a year.
Rep. Bob Irvin, R-Atlanta, the
GOPleaderin the House, called it
yet another delay for a tax-cut
promise Miller made first in 1990
but abandoned in 1991 when the
economy turned sour. “We want
to begin doing it,” he said.
even most Democrats. “But I am
alarmed for the country and this
whole culture of politics of de
struction. They aren’t talking
about opinions. They are destroy
ing people.”
Within days of her appoint
ment, questions wereraised about
Mrs. Jeffrey’s credentials-she is
not a professional historian-and
about her staunch support for
Gingrich when he launched a con
troversial class called “Renewing
American Civilization” at
Kennesaw.
But the bottom fell out on her
Monday when Democrats and re
porters discovered she was the
same political scientist who had
criticized the proposed history
class on the Holocaust because it
“gives no evidence of balance or
objectivity. The Nazi pointof view,
however unpopular, isstill a point
of view and is not presented, noris
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Miller said the delay is simply
a strategy to force lawmakers to
adopt the tax cut he wants and not
some substitute.
“Do you expect me to put $125
million out there for them to come
up with the way that they want to
spend it? I'm saying, ‘Make the
commitment to cut the sales tax
offfood and then I'll provide... (the
money).”
There is reason for his con
cern. Some key members of his
own Democratic party, which
holds a majority in the Legisla
ture, said they haven’t been won
over to his proposal.
“I've got a concern about
whether that’s the right direction
to go to give meaningful tax re
lief,” said Rep. Tom Buck, D-Co
lumbus, chairman of the tax-writ
ing House Ways and Means Com
mittee.
Several House leaders, includ
ing Speaker Tom Murphy, have
been working on a different tax
plan that would increase the sales
tax to pay for education and allow
local governments to reduce or
eliminate property taxes for
schools.
Facing an explosion of juve
nile crime, Miller proposed in his
budget for the yearbeginning July
lan additional $33 million tobuild
more youth prisons, $1.9 million
to hire 101 more guards and a
$35.3 million increase in the bud
get of the department that han
dles juvenile offenders.
As promised, Miller also pro
posed to expand the lottery-fund
ed kindergarten program for 4-
year-olds and to expand the popu
lar HOPE scholarship program.
that of the Ku Klux Klan.”
Rep. Charles Schumer, D-
N.Y., on Tuesday charged Mrs.
Jeffrey with “showing surprising
insensitivity to anti-semitism and
bigotry.”
Mrs. Jeffrey believes today,
as she did in 1986, that her re
marks have been twisted to im
ply that she is a bigot and a Nazi
sympathizer. “It’s acomplete dis
tortion,” she said, adding that
she received a letter from the
Department of Educationin 1986
apologizing for the way she was
treated then.
She said she criticized the
proposed Holocaust course be
cause she felt it would be too
mind-bending for high school stu
dents. In addition, she said, she
still believes that it is vital to
present all points of view, even
those that are unpopular, when
teaching history.
You Are Not ‘
Legally Obligated
To Listen To
This Woman,
‘.l .
But Millions Do.
Nina Totenberg, Rlfifinal Affairs Correspondent for
National Public Radio’s® All Things Considered®
weekday afternoons 5-6:30 pm.
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