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PAGE 5A
ForsythOpinion
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Defense of
ads
Those who take a cer¬
tain pleasure in denounc¬
ing the evils of negative
political advertising
should have spent the last
week in South Carolina.
They could have plunked
down in front of TV sets,
especially during morn¬
ing, early evening and late
evening new s programs,
and by adroit use of the
remote control seen one
negative spot after anoth
er.
They could have
watched again and again
the Ron Paul campaign’s
stinging denunciation of
Newt Gingrich for, among
other things, taking $1.6
million from Freddie
Mac.
They could have seen a
similar assault on
Gingrich from the pro
Romney Restore Our
Future super PAC (by the
way, how do you restore
something which by defi¬
nition doesn’t yet exist?).
They could have taken
delight in the Rick
Santorum campaign's ad
highlighting similarities
between Mitt Romney’s
record on issues and that
of Barack Obama, or in
Paul’s stinging ad
denouncing Santorum as a
“big government conser¬
vative.”
All of these ads, you
may notice, targeted the
three candidates w ho,
coming out of Iowa and
New Hampshire, were
considered by themselves
and others as having some
chance of winning the
nomination Romney,
Gingrich and Santorum.
Left largely unattacked
were Paul, who confesses
he has no chance to win,
and Rick Perry, who with¬
drew Thursday morning.
There is a near-unani¬
mous sentiment among
the high-minded that neg¬
ative advertising is a bad
thing. It pollutes the air
more than carbon diox¬
ide. It breeds cynicism
about politics and gov¬
ernment. It is somehow
unfair.
In response, let me say
a few words in praise of
negative ads.
First, elections are an
adversary business, zero
sum games in which only
one candidate can w in and
all the others must lose.
Sometimes it’s smart for
competitors to concede
points to their opponents.
But it’s irrational to
expect one side to sing
consistent praises of the
other.
In second-grade elec¬
tions, it may be consid¬
ered bragging to vote for
yourself. But it is silly to
expect adults to behave
this way.
It is especially foolish
to expect that candidates
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Send a letter to the editor to P.O. Box 210 Cumming, GA 30028; hue it to (770) 889-6017; or e-mail it to editor@fbrsythnews.com.
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MICHAEL BARONE
Columnist
who seem headed to win
elections should escape
criticism on television.
Every candidate has weak
points and makes mis¬
takes. It’s not dirty pool
for opponents to point
them out.
Second, it is said that
negative ads can be inac¬
curate and unfair. Well,
yes, but so can positive
ads. An inaccurate or
unfair ad invites refutation
and rebuttal, by opponents
or in the media, and can
boomerang against the
attacker. So candidates
have an incentive to make
attacks that can be sus¬
tained.
Sometimes voters
respond negatively even
to fair attacks. That’s why
in multicandidate races,
an attack by candidate A
on candidate B can hurt A
as well as B, and end up
helping candidate C or D.
That’s why many cam¬
paigns hesitate before
attacking. And it also
gives them a motive to
make attacks that can be
sustained because they are
accurate and fair.
Third, advertising is not
always decisive. Other
things can matter more.
The barrage of negative
ads against Gingrich hurt
him in Iowa and New
Hampshire, but in South
Carolina it didn’t prevent
him from defeating
Romney in the double
digits. Debate perfor¬
mances trumped attack
spots.
Behind the disdain of
the high-minded for nega¬
tive campaign spots is a
fear that they will erode
Americans’ faith in poli¬
tics and government.
These folks like to cite
polls showing Americans
once had great confidence
in institutions and that
now they lack it.
But polls have been
showing lack of faith in
institutions going back to
the late 1960s.
I strongly suspect that if
you could go farther back
in history and ask similar
questions, you would find
that during much of our
history, most Americans
were grousing about poli¬
ticians and complaining
about government. Mark
Twain and Will Rogers
made good livings doing
so.
Michael Barone is senior
political analyst for The
Washington Examiner
(www.washingtonexamin
er.com).
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Jim Powell for the Forsyth County News
Trying to find job creation
Back in March 2005, I sat in the
press gallery of the Georgia
Senate reporting on the debate
over a bill to give tax breaks to
major corporations that amounted
to nearly $1 billion Over a 10-year
period.
I listened as a state senator from
Gainesville named Casey Cagle
assured his colleagues that this tax
break measure was going to be the
greatest thing for Georgia since
the invention of the cotton gin.
“It’s pro-jobs legislation,” said
Cagle, who’s now the lieutenant
governor. “It will ensure we have
jobs for the future. There’s no loss
in revenue to the state of Georgia.”
That bill passed the Senate and
was signed into law. Over the past
decade, legislators have approved
and governors have signed many
similar bills to give tax breaks to
such entities as Delta Air Lines,
Guifstream, Coca-Cola, Aflac,
Rubbermaid, and developers of
“tourist attractions," among many
others.
I was able to watch the debate
on most of these bills. Over and
over again, I heard the same argu¬
ments from our elected represen¬
tatives: these tax cuts were going
to “create jobs” and “grow the
economy” and bring in so much
new business that the state
wouldn’t really lose any revenues.
How did things work out in the
real world with all of those assur¬
ances? Not well. If there’s one
thing we should have learned from
the experiences of the past few
years, it is that tax cuts are not the
formula for job creation.
Let’s look at some numbers. For
the month of December, Georgia’s
jobless rate was 9.7 percent. The
national unemployment rate was
considerably lower at 8.5 percent,
and that has been the case for a
long time. For the past 53 months
in a row — nearly four-and-a-half
years — Georgia’s monthly unem¬
ployment rate has been higher
than the national rate.
Obviously, every state has
gled in trying to deal with the
worst economic downturn since
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This is a page of opinion — ours, yours and
others. Signed columns and cartoons are the
opinions of the writers and artists, and they
may not reflect our views.
TOM CRAWFORD
Columnist
the Great Depression. You would
expect Georgia to have a high
unemployment rate, which it does.
But with all of those jobs that the
tax breaks were supposedly going
to create, you would also expect
Georgia at least to be doing a little
better than the national unemploy¬
ment rate. Instead, we've been
doing worse.
The belief that tax cuts are a
magic elixir that will generate
jobs and turbo-charge the econo¬
my is one that apparently will
never die among our elected lead¬
ers.
In the opening days of the 2012
General Assembly session, it
seems as if every legislator has
memorized the talking point,
“we’ve got to cut taxes to jump
start the economy.” The latest pro¬
posal is to eliminate the sales tax
on energy used in manufacturing,
which would amount to an esti¬
mated $150 million for Georgia’s
businesses. Gov. Nathan Deal said
elimination of the energy tax is
one of his top priorities and will
“vastly improve the competitive
position of our producers.”
I wish it were that easy. Georgia
needs thousands of new jobs
because our economy has been in
such a deep slump. It would be
fantastic if these jobs could be
’ created simply by adopting anoth¬
er batch of tax breaks. Despite all
the cuts that lawmakers keep pass¬
ing, however, our employment
record is still much worse than the
national average.
The outlook is not completely
gloomy. There were signs in
recent months that the economy in
both Georgia and the nation may
be getting a littler perkier.
The number of people seeking
unemployment benefits nationally
has dropped to the lowest weekly
number since April 2008. The
decline is seen as a sign that the
job market is strengthening.
In December, American
employers added 200,000 jobs,
which was the sixth straight
month in which the economy
added at least 100,000 jobs. The
national unemployment rate of 8.5
percent is at a three-year low.
In Georgia, there were also
some positive indicators as the
unemployment rate declined by a
small percentage in October,
November, and December. Our
sales tax collections indicate that
consumers may be w illing to
spend a little more money
It is interesting to note that
Georgia's improving economic
numbers were recorded during a
three-month period when the leg¬
islature was not in session — and
did not pass a single tax cut.
Tom Crawford is editor of The Georgia
Report, an internet news service at
gareport.com that reports on govern¬
ment and politics in Georgia. He can
be reached at tcrawford@gareport.
com.
Letter policy
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Mail letter^ to the Forsyth
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Memorial Blvd., fax to (770)
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