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PAGE 7A
FORSYTHOPINION
Wednesday, February 21, 2018
Legislators
attack a sheriff -
how strange
It was a sight you very
seldom see at the General
Assembly — legislators,
including Speaker David
Ralston, openly attacking
a Georgia sheriff.
Their target was
Putnam County Sheriff
Howard Sills, who took
some hard shots at Gov.
Nathan Deal last week
over the latest chapter in
Deal’s efforts to revise the
state’s sentencing laws
and criminal justice pro
cedures.
“This governor has
done more for those who
perpetrate crime than
Lucifer and his demons
combined, and every
piece of his criminal jus
tice reform that has been
passed into law has com
plicated or burdened our
duties and/or endangered
the citizenry of our state.”
Sills said in an outraged
email to members of the
Georgia Sheriffs
Association.
“Never, never, in this
state’s history has the
criminal element been
coddled and fostered as it
has been over the last 7
years,” Sills said, urging
his fellow sheriffs to
oppose Deal’s initiative.
After Sills’ criticisms
were reported in the
media, House members
made angry speeches
turning the political
attacks back on Sills.
“Are you serious?”
asked Rep. Scot Turner
(R-Holly Springs).
’Because we treat people
as human beings in the
criminal justice system
that we somehow are
worse than Lucifer, than
the devil?” :
“It’s an insult to me,
and you should be insult
ed,” said Rep. John
Meadows (R-Calhoun),
chairman of the powerful
Rules Committee, who
called Sills’ criticisms “a
bunch of crap.”
. “Ever who this sheriff
was, (he) was totally out
of line,” Meadows said.
“He ought to be cen
sured.”
“When I read those
comments this morning, I
got sick to my stomach,”
Ralston said. “Few things
in my public career have I
found as disgusting and
deplorable as that state
ment made by a man who
wears a badge. They are
wrong and they are an
embarrassment to an hon
orable profession. I hope
they will rebuke this kind
of sick talk.”
It was an amazing spec
tacle because sheriffs are
among the most powerful
local officials in the state.
Legislators would ordinar
ily be hesitant to attack
them in public. You might
not like or agree with your
local sheriff, but you don’t
want to get on the wrong
side of him in public dis
pute.
Sills was unrepentant.
When asked later if he
stood by his criticisms of
Deal, he said, “I believe
that, and by God, I have
the right to say it.”
Deal’s criminal justice
efforts, which have tried
to reduce the population
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TOM CRAWFORD
Columnist
of the state’s prison sys
tem by providing such
alternatives as drug
accountability courts and
lighter sentences for non
violent offenders, have
generally received high
marks from legislators of
both parties.
As House members
were taking their shots at
Sills, in fact, Democratic
legislators like Rep. Mary
Margaret Oliver
(D-Decatur) and Rep. Al
Williams (D-Midway)
stepped up to commend
the Republican governor
on this issue. :
“As a result of our
efforts, fewer Georgians
were committed to prison
last year than any time in
the past 15 years, thereby
saving millions of taxpay
er dollars and keeping
families and communities
intact,” Deal said in
releasing his latest pro
posals.
“From 2008 to 2016,
Georgia experienced
simultaneous decreases in
overall crime, down 24
percent, and imprison
ment rates, down 6 per
cent,” Deal said. “In 2017,
Georgia saw the lowest
number of overall prison
commitments since 2002,
and the lowest number of
African-Americans enter
ing the prison system
since 1987.
The governor’s bill, SB
407, would allow judges
to take a defendant’s abili
ty to pay into consider
ation when setting bail for
misdemeanor offenses —
a move away from cash
bail requirements in some
instances, which some
local governments are
already doing. :
The bill would give
judges more flexibility to
convert monetary fines
into community service,
another way to keep low
income defendants out of
jail simply because they
lack the money to pay a
fee. SB 407 would also
impose stricter penalties
on firearm-related crimi
nal offenses.
None of those proposals
call for opening the doors
to the state prison system
and releasing hordes of
hardened felons to prey
on innocent Georgians,
contrary to the impression
you’d get from reading
Sheriff Sills’ diatribe.
Tt was 56 over the fop it
brought on a reaction you
almost never see from leg
islators — a reaction that I
suspect most sheriffs
would rather not find
themselves caught in the
middle of.
Tom Crawford is editor of
The Georgia Report, an
internet news service at
gareport.com that reports
on state government and
politics. He can be reached
at tcrawford@gareport.
com. :
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: Jim Powell for the Forsyth County News
Trump, Republicans go
on a spending spree
White House budget director
Mick Mulvaney would not allow
cameras into the briefing room as
he outlined President Donald
Trump’s budget to reporters. He
explained, “This is going to be
really, really boring and really,
really hard.”
The session also threatened to
be really, really embarrassing to
Mulvaney, a one-time GOP con
gressman from South Carolina
who came to Washington as an
uncompromising fiscal hawk.
As the head of the administra
tion’s Office of Management and
Budget, Mulvaney has found him
self in the unenviable position of
defending a budget that — if it
actually lives up to its impossible
promises — stands to increase the
S2O trillion national debt Trump
inherited by an extra $7 trillion
over the next decade. .
In fact, on Tuesday when a sen
ator asked Mulvaney if, as a con
gressman, he would have voted for
Trump’s $4.4 trillion budget for
fiscal year 2019, the budget direc
tor answered he probably would
not have.
Later, spokeswoman Meghyn
Burns released a statement that
clarified: “Just to be clear,
Director Mulvaney was referring
to the recent caps deal when
answering Senator (Patty)
Murray’s question this morning.
Naturally, he would vote for the
President’s FY 19 budget that he
released yesterday.”
If that seems confusing, that’s
because it is. Last week’s “caps
deal” is a two-year spending plan
that Congress passed and Trump
signed to end another government
shutdown. The OMB has :
reworked its FYI 9 numbers to -
reflect the two-year bill, which
increased spending by S3OO bil
lion.
“The GOP bluffs on spending
and deficits,” observed Brian
Riedl, a former GOP staffer and
now a senior fellow at the right-
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DEBRA SAUNDERS
Columnist
leaning Manhattan Institute.
“They talked a good game under
President Clinton and then went
on a spending spree under
President Bush. They talked a
‘good game under President
Obama,” also and they’re back on
a spending spree under Trump.
Trump talked a good game as
the 2016 GOP presidential nomi
nee when he hit President Barack
Obama for doubling the national
debt, which rose from some $lO
trillion to S2O trillion during the
Obama years.
Problem: If the Trump plan’s
rosy scenarios fall through, GOP
spending is likely to race past its
rosy $7 trillion deficit projection
through 2028 and accumulate
enough debt to match or exceed
the dollar amount of debt racked
up under Obama.
OMB projects fiscal year 2019
will come in just under $1 trillion
in the red, while the Committee
for a Responsible Budget has pre
dicted a 2019 deficit as high as
$1.2 trillion. That’s around double
the $587 billion shortfall from
Obama'’s last fiscal year. e
Those politicians who actually
want to impose fiscal sense find
themselves in a maze already
choked with spending that would
be painful to curb, and rules that
present no ready way to good bud
geting. '
“There is a way to get off this
treadmill of trillion-dollar defi
cits,” Mulvaney argued, “but we
have to take the spending side
extraordinarily seriously.”
One approach, he said, was to
impress upon Congress that “you
don’t have to spend all of this
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.
money.”
Like that’s going to happen.
Riedl sees a “Trump effect.” The
president “got elected promising
big tax cuts and no reforms to
Social Security and Medicare.”
His GOP primary wins convinced
Republican politicians that even
GOP voters don’t really want
spending cuts.
“I can tell you having worked in
the Senate for six years,” Riedl
added, “a lot of Senate
Republicans are privately relieved
at having increased domestic caps,
tOO.‘n e ' :
It doesn’t help that the :
Republican president is at peace
owing tons (‘))f[}}oney. In 2016, he
boasted to CBS News’ Norah
O’Donnell that he was the “king
of debt. I'm great with debt.
Nobody knows debt better than
me. I’ve made a fortune by using
debt, and if things don’t work out,
I renegotiate the debt. I mean,
that’s a smart thing, not a stupid
thing.”
According to Politifact, Trump
filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy
six times over 25 years.
Trump also knows the downside
of too much debt. In “The Art of
the Deal,” he wrote of New York
in the 19705: “The city’s debt was
rising to levels that started to
make everyone very nervous. For
the first time you heard people
talking about the city going bank
rupt. Fear led to more fear. Before
long New York was suffering from
a crisis of confidence. People sim
ply stopped believing in the city.”
With Republicans like Trump, it
could happen to the country.
Contact Debra J. Saunders at dsaun
ders@reviewjournal.com or 202-C62-
7391. Follow @DebraJSaunders un
MWL