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• k Forsyth County News
P.O. Box 210
Cumming, Ga. 30028
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Why Georgia needs to balance the public-private playing field
By Steve Langford
" Georgia Public Policy Foundation
The rush by many Georgia
cities to enter new businesses and
expand existing ones, in direct and
unfair competition with small and
large private companies, poses the
primary long-term fiscal challenge
to Gov. Barnes and the Legislature.
Many cities are adding to their tra
ditional services water, sewer,
trash, gas and electric such new
ventures as cable TV, telecommu
nications, hotels, real estate devel
opment, construction services,
appliance sales, etc. This alarming
trend in local government is the
purest form of socialism and is
crashing onto the scene at a time
When all other levels of govern
ment are discovering inefficiencies
and privatizing services at a steady
pace.
The problems with government
expansion into these areas are evi
dent:
„ • Government is inefficient and
will invariably provide less service
at higher cost to consumers (the
same utility crews you see holding
up shovels around town will be
delivering the new services).
• When government sells a ser
vice or product, state and federal
tax revenue is lost and the associ
ated costs shifted to all other tax-
Y2KII - What should your church do?
On Dec. 3, the Evangel
' Christian Church of
Hendersonville, N.C., and leaders
of 15 other churches met with
government officials, bankers and
representatives of Duke Power, the
local electric utility, about prob
•.terns of “Y2K,” the possibility
that when the calendar hits Jan. 1,
2000 that people might not have
access to their money or power.
The Duke Power official acknowledged that some
of its computers had a “millennial bug” embedded
that misread an abbreviated date such as 01/01/00 as
taking place in the year 1900, not 2000, but said the
* utility was “70 percent compliant.” This was not too
'comforting to Evangel pastor Jerry McClellan, who
sees his job as “prying the lid off certain facts.”
However, state officials were so impressed with
Evangel’s leadership, that the National Guard will des
ignate the church as a community shelter, and locate a
60-kilowatt generator, there that would have cost
$30,000+ to purchase, in case there is a power outage.
Why should churches worry about a computer
glitch that could cause temporary disruptions of power
or food deliveries? “We are called to be ready to love
and serve others in all circumstances,” writes Shaunti
Christine Feldhahn in “Y2K: The Millennium Bug.”
She points to Chapter 41 of Genesis, where Joseph
interprets a dream by the Pharaoh to predict seven
years of bountiful harvests followed by seven years of
famine, so severe that “all of the abundance in the land
will not be remembered.” Therefore, Joseph urged
Pharaoh to “take a fifth of the harvest during the seven
■ years of abundance,” to be held in reserve to feed peo
ple during the years of famine.
The impressed Pharaoh appointed Joseph to man
age Egypt. Joseph’s predictions turned out to be valid.
During the famine, Joseph had stored enough food to
not only feed Egypt but surrounding lands.
Similarly, Christian economists such as Larry
Burkett, wrote in his June 1998 newsletter that we
should “ask God to use the impact of Y2K whatever it
turns out to be as a catalyst to awaken millions of peo
ple and turn them to ChrisL.Jf the churches were pre
pared with food, water and power, and this thing really
happened, and they can say to the community, ‘Come
on in, we’ll help you,’ what a great opportunity God’s
" people would have.”
The current issue of Christianity Today quotes
payers. More importantly, cities do
not pay property taxes on their
facilities, directly costing local
taxpayers great sums that would
otherwise be paid by private firms.
• Taxpayers are being exposed
to tremendous risk with capital
investments being made on their
behalf, without their approval,
through industrial revenue bonds
originally intended to promote pri
vate business. These investments
cannot possibly keep pace with
coming innovations in the private
sector; and who will cover the
bond costs when they fail?
• Most importantly, using tax
dollars, regulatory exemption and
government protection to compete
unfairly with small business own
ers and corporate shareholders
who have invested their life sav
ings is patently un-American.
In my final session as a state
senator, I introduced “The Free
Enterprise Encouragement Act of
1998” (S.B. 343), in an attempt to
check the unfairness of this trend
and to save taxpayers the future
pain clearly associated with the
consequences of these ill-advised
ventures. ,
The political reaction was
astounding. Other senators showed
me literally hundreds of letters and
faxes from city managers, mayors
and other elected city officials
ImM Mike
JflfF McManus
little.”
The reaction of Christian leaders has varied wide
ly. Jerry Falwell, in an August sermon predicted God’s
wrath next Jan. 1: “He may be preparing to confound
pur language, to jam our communications, scatter our
efforts and judge us for our sin and rebellion against
his lordship. We are hearing from many sources that
Jan. 1, 2000 will be a fateful day in the history of the
world.”
Nonsense, argues the General Council of the
Assemblies of God: “Needless fear and alarmist tac
tics over the Y2K issue and the approaching turn of
the millennium are directly in conflict with the teach
ings of our Lord. We encourage our people to not
engage in activities such as hoarding food, withdraw
ing money from banks, believing doomsday scenar
ios.”
In the Toledo area, Jeff Keim’s Bethel Assembly
of God has ignored its headquarter’s advice, and has
established a local “Joseph Project,” a loose network
of 75 people from 15-20 churches who are conduct
ing community awareness/action seminars. His
church is expanding a storehouse of emergency food
and medical supplies. “There are many families who
don’t have resources invalids, the handicapped who
will have to rely on others,” he says..
I asked, “What if you are wrong and your national
church leaders are right?” he replied, “I don’t care
about being right or wrong. If we help people and
there is no need, no one gets hurt. If we do nothing to
help, and it turns out there is a need, people could be
harmed.”
There are now at least 40 Joseph Projects spring
ing up. Rev. Larry Baker of Prayer and Praise
Christian Fellowship organized the first one near
Atlanta. Every two week, 80 people from several
counties gather “to balance spiritual preparedness
with practical preparedness. To learn more, call (770)
592-1975.
Once upon a time, the story begins
Once upon a time, there was a little girl
who lived in a very small town. She knew her
next door neighbors and she could always
find at their house a glass of water on a hot
day and something warm on a cold day. Her
parents did not worry about her when she vis
ited next door because the people were just
like them, they loved children and treated
them with kindness. They even expected her
to behave in their house.
The little girl went to school just up the
street. She knew all the teachers in her school
by name and they knew her name and who
her parents were and where she lived. One
rainy day when she forgot her umbrella, her
teacher even took her home so she would not
get wet. In her school were other children
who lived on her street and just around the
corner from her house. School was fun and
she could not wait to go each day.
Holidays were special and birthdays, they
were the grandest times in the year. Her mom
would bake a caramel cake, the best she ever
ate and the candles multiplied each year, but
she could still blow them out on the first try.
Os course there would be presents, besides
Christmas this was the only other special
opposing the measure. This was
the most intense lobbying effort on
any issue I experienced in six
years in the Georgia Senate. And it
worked. Legislators were so intim
idated by the pressure applied that
the legislation was never properly
debated and was ultimately killed
in the Rules Committee. (Privately,
many legislators agreed that the
problem should be addressed.)
The motivations and political
dynamics that cause this trend to
exist, in an era that has observed
the failure of socialistic systems
around the world, are interesting.
One can only guess how Georgians
could fall for such a ruse. The
short-term attractiveness can’t be
resisted by city management,
which is lured by the prospect of
fiefdoms that can be created with
out personal liability. Elected offi
cials too often defer to the advice
of those same management types
and cannot themselves resist the
misleading perception that local
government expansion will work
and allow them to “make a profit”
for their city and keep taxes down.
The truth is that in the long run
taxes are only shifted, and the final
outcome when the inevitable
failures occur will cost taxpay
ers plenty. The governor and
Legislature must take action now.
A legal framework should be
Nathan Myhrvold, Microsoft’s
chief technical officer, saying, “It’s
very hard to tell how bad the situa
tion will be. I’m sure things will
break. It’s very hard to dispel a
nightmare scenario... The dark-side
scenario of airplanes falling out of
the sky and bank computers crash
ing is possible. But it’s fundamen
tally very, very hard to know
whether the impact will be big or
Julianne
Boling
time when presents were given to her. The
wrapping was always pretty and there was
usually some item or another that she had
wished for long and hard.
When it snowed, the little girl would bun
dle up in every piece of clothes she could get
on her body. She would hurry out to help
other children make snowballs and snowmen.
Her hands would turn blue from the cold, but
she wasn’t really cold she would tell her
mom. Snow ice cream would be the treat of
the day followed closely by the hot chocolate
made on the stove from cocoa, milk, sugar
and some magical ingredient that made it just
right for little cold bodies.
On summer days when the sun was so hot
established that assures the avail
ability of needed services, limits
taxpayer exposure and treats pri
vate business fairly. Specifically,
new legislation should be passed
with at least the following fea
tures:
• Cities should be required to
impute into all their prices the
taxes and fees required of their pri
vate competitors. This process or
requirement will help end unfair
pricing structures and, if the cities
are truly as efficient as they claim,
generate more revenue to further
reduce taxes.
• No city should be allowed to
regulate any private firm with
which they compete in a particular
service.
• The practice of employing
eminent domain should be sus
pended in cases where a city com
petes with a private business that
has no such power to aid in
expanding its facilities.
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FORSYTH COUNTY NEWS Sunday, January 10,1999 I
• The use of industrial revenue
bonds for city endeavors should be
suspended. City councils and may
ors should be required to sell all
bond issues to their constituents.
Additionally, any capital expendi
ture over a certain amount, for cap
ital investment to compete with
private business, should be put to a
referendum.
• Cities competing against pri
vate business should be held to all
anti-trust requirements applied to
those businesses, such as prohibi
tions against predatory pricing,
price squeezing, etc.
• Where private competition
exists, rate increases for services
provided by cities should be
approved by city councils and
mayors. Rate increases are often
hidden tax hikes, and the govern
ing body should have knowledge
of these increases and be required
to vote on their implementation.
• Rules for fairness in the
adults sat on the porch with a fan, the little
girl and her friends would run merrily
through the sprinkler until the yard Was
soaked and soggy. There was not much cry
ing except of course when someone was hurt
or when the bigger kids tried to change ’the
rules and wouldn’t play fair, but that wasn’t a
very big deal when an adult said behave or
you will have to come in the house.
Once upon a time when the little girl grew
up and had children of her own, she looked
around for a small town just like she had
lived in as a child. She searched everywhere
and could not find a place exactly like she
remembered her hometown. After n)uch
searching, she choose a town that gavq her
glimpses of her childhood days, a community
with streets and sidewalks and lights around
the town.
“Once upon a time” begins many stories
for children but just as important are the once
upon a time stories of adults. They are filled
with the “remember when’s” of old friemds
and the “I recall’s” of conversations with new
friends. They are the fabric and fiber of our
heritage and they are nestled snugly inithe
security of our memories.
award of franchises such as cable
TV should be standardized and
implemented.
The only cases in which cities
should be exempted from these
rules are services that are not oth
erwise available in a particular
community. There is an argument
for cities being unregulated in sqch
a scenario.
Let’s hope that the “Home
Rule” argument, always given,by
cities (and counties), will not con
tinue to prevail in this matter as
has been the case in the past. There
is no justification for “Home Rule”
where a practice is simply wrong,
as in this case. And in such an
instance, it is totally appropriate
for the state to deal with any
injustice.
Steve Langford served in the
Georgia Senate for six years and
was a gubernatorial candidate in
1998.
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