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THE JACKSON HERALD
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 28, 2009
Named the best weekly editorial page in the nation for 2007, 2008
Opinions
“Private opinion is weak, but public opinion is almost omnipotent. ”
- Henry Ward Beecher -
Mike Buffington, editor • Email: Mike@mainstreetnews.com
our views
A few state
cutback ideas
S TATE Rep. Tommy Benton
said this week that while he
gets a lot of calls to cut state
spending, few people will give him
specific suggestions on where to cut.
We have a suggestion: Everywhere.
Just like a lot of local governments,
the state government became bloated
during the housing bubble. Money
flowed into the state budget and was
quickly spent on a huge variety of
programs.
Most government spending involves
personnel, and that’s where the state
should focus its cuts. Over the last
two decades, the growth in state gov
ernment pay and benefits has risen
beyond what is offered by many of the
state’s businesses, especially small
businesses which are the backbone
of job creation.
A few suggestions:
—Cut state paid holidays from the
current 12 down to 5. There’s no rea
son to give state employees 12 paid
holidays in addition to a battery of
vacation time.
-Cut back on the generous health
benefits offered most state employ
ees. Have state employees share
more of the cost, just as most private
businesses are doing.
-Cut the number of employees in
the state’s university system. Offices
of academia are notorious for being
overstaffed and under worked. The
work ethic on most college campuses
pales compared to the private sector.
-Cut the pay for bureaucrats and
others who make far more than the
average salary for Georgia citizens.
Here’s just one example: The Jackson
County School System has nine peo
ple making over $100,000 per year,
another 16 making over $90,000 per
year and a total of 165 are making
over $60,000 per year. The average
pay in Jackson County is between
$22,000 - $34,000. Do the math, then
get salaries back in line.
-Cancel most non-emergency state
travel. State employees are always
going to a variety of mostly useless
meetings and seminars. Continuing
education junkets are a big business.
Cut them out.
-Cut all state consultants, especially
in education. In fact, cut the bureau
crats in the state department of edu
cation by half.
-Cut mandates to local govern
ments, including school systems.
Many state mandates are just job
creation programs for bureaucrats to
justify their positions.
These are just a few areas where
the state could make a dent in its
expenses.
This economic downturn is affect
ing everyone. Government employ
ees are not — and should not — be
exempt from what is already happen
ing in the private sector.
The Jackson Herald
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Mike Buffington Co-Publisher & Editor
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"...Looks like this is going to be a long winter!"
letters
Seeking info on state
Dear Editor:
I am in fifth grade at Ripon Christian
Elementary School in Ripon, California. 1
have adopted your state as a class project. 1
will be doing a report and making a display
about Georgia. Towards the end of April or
the beginning of May my class will be having
a “State Fair.” I will display and show every
thing that I have gotten and learned about
your great state to my whole school.
It would be helpful to me if you could
ask your readers to send me postcards of
your state, maps, brochures, information
about wildlife, industry, neat places to visit,
statistics, sports teams and any other infor
mation and items your readers feel would
be helpful.
I hope your readers will help me with my
project. I’m looking forward to hearing from
them and promise to send a thank you to
them for helping me. I am excited to learn
about your state!
Thank you from California,
Travis
Mrs. Terpstra’s Class
Ripon Christian School
217 N. Maple Avenue
Ripon, CA 95366
At DOT, change is on the way
tom
crawford
POLITICAL science professors for years
have been teaching their students that
Georgia’s affairs are managed by the tradi
tional three branches of government: the
executive, the legislative, and the judicial.
That is not the whole story, howev
er, because our state also has a fourth
branch of government: the Department of
Transportation.
The DOT is a
political fiefdom
run by the State
Transportation Board,
whose members are
elected by legisla
tors. Transportation
Board members are
empowered to pick a
commissioner, usu
ally a career highway
engineer, to run the
agency that spends
billions of dollars a
year on roads and bridges.
The constitutional structure of the DOT
is supposed to provide the department
with some independence from the gov
ernor’s office, but that ceased to be the
case nearly 20 years ago. Zell Miller, Roy
Barnes and Sonny Perdue used varying
amounts of political muscle to persuade
the Transportation Board to appoint their
personal choices as DOT commissioner.
In addition to that erosion of autonomy,
the DOT has some perplexing manage
ment problems these days. The depart
ment finished the last fiscal year with a
budget deficit of $456 million, a shortfall
that department officials are still struggling
to explain. Transportation officials have
basically made commitments to pave a lot
of highways without the money to pay for
them.
The biggest issue facing the department is
that it does not do a very good job of carry
ing out its basic responsibility: transporting
people from point A to point B.
In the metro Atlanta area that is now
home to half the state’s population, the
highways are just as crowded as ever and
the commuting times for Georgia workers
remain among the highest in the nation.
The mess has gotten so bad that the metro
area’s business leaders are demanding that
the General Assembly do something before
we choke to death on our own congestion.
The accumulation of problems could final
ly force legislators to make some far-reach
ing changes during this session. Picking
up on an idea floated by House Majority
Leader Jerry Keen and others, lawmakers
could be ready to shift the decision-making
responsibilities from the Transportation
Board to another entity whose members
would be appointed equally by the gover
nor, lieutenant governor, and speaker of
the House.
It would be a momentous change because
legislators would be giving up one of the
few perks of power that is part of their
job, the ability to name members of the
Transportation Board. Are they ready to do
that? Maybe so.
“I have to believe that there will be few
objections to giving up the ‘privilege’ of
electing DOT Board members,” a legisla
tor confided. “I say this because it is a
far different time from years ago and the
reign of King Gillis. Legislators realize the
transportation system is broken and that
their constituents want it fixed, and fixed
yesterday.
“The past few DOT board elections have
not been pretty as you well know. Everyone
came out losers in the long run. I was put
under so much pressure by everyone from
a U.S. Senator to a client to vote for a par
ticular person that I got to a point that I did
not want to even answer the phone.”
The lawmaker concluded: “Bottom line:
the days of the Wool Hat Boys and Mr. Gillis
are gone. And we have ourselves one heck
of a mess. Let’s make the system work bet
ter.”
If legislators move ahead with this change,
they will effectively move the transporta
tion department back under the executive
branch of government. Perhaps that will
enable whoever sits in the governor’s office
to bring some focus and consistency to the
department’s activities.
It will not, however, solve the real prob
lem that underlies the state’s transporta
tion woes: we don’t have enough money
under the current tax structure to build the
highways and transit systems necessary to
move our growing population.
DOT Commissioner Gena Evans laid out
the situation succinctly to a legislative com
mittee last week: “We have continuing
transportation needs and yet we continue
to under-invest. We have $2.4 billion worth
of projects on the books that we can’t pos
sibly fund.”
Roads cost money. The General Assembly
is controlled by leaders opposed to the idea
of significant tax increases. Until you can
resolve that conflict, all the bureaucratic
restructurings in the world won’t make a bit
of difference.
Tom Crawford is the editor of Capitol
Impact’s Georgia Report. He can be
reached at tcrawford@caDitolimDact.net.
The Bush legacy
O NE OF the questions that will be debated
for decades will be: What was the “Bush
legacy” of the past eight years?
All presidents are aware that their time in office will
be weighed and debated in history. It is the nature of
leaders to want to be remembered. The Pharaohs
built pyramids, Roman leaders built the Coliseum,
popes built cathedrals, and kings built castles.
Modern presidents do
less monument construc
tion, but they do seek to
leave behind monumental
decisions that will be
remembered in the history
books.
President Bush was no
different. But as we still
stand in the shadow of his
administration, it’s difficult
to predict exactly how he
will be remembered.
A good example of that
is the growing recognition
of the legacy of President
Reagan. Although often vili
fied during his term as a bumbling know-nothing, his
tory has been kinder to Reagan. His confrontational
tone against the Soviet Union had a lot to do with the
opening of the Berlin Wall and the subsequent fall of
communism and the breakup of the Soviet empire.
At the time, Reagan was derided for being “militaris
tic;” today he’s seen as having been prescient.
Bush is hoping for a similar redemption of his repu
tation. Maligned today, Bush undoubtedly hopes for a
kinder tone in the future.
That will depend, however, on what happens in the
next few years as the last cards of his administration
are played out. Iraq and Afghanistan are on-going, as
are a number of policies related to those wars. And
there’s still a lot we don’t know about the Bush admin
istration that will become public when today’s closed
records are eventually opened up.
Still, it’s difficult to see how Bush could go down in
history as among the nation’s better presidents. Even
many conservatives were glad to see him exit office,
believing that he had betrayed their cause.
Rather than constraining the size and scope of
government, which is the bedrock of conservatism,
Bush expanded government. He exploded the federal
deficit. He created the federally-intrusive No Child Left
Behind program, which has done harm to America’s
schools, in addition to creating a new layer of bureau
cracy. And with the Iraq war, Bush injected American
military power into a region for causes that are now in
serious doubt and from which it may never be able to
extract itself.
And there were other misadventures. The lack of
federal response in the Katrina disaster left the govern
ment looking impotent. Then after it finally did get
involved, it dumped millions of tax dollars into pro
grams that were full of cormption and waste.
And many conservatives were horrified last fall
when Bush acceded to the massive federal bailout of
U.S. banks as Wall Street collapsed. While history may
eventually treat that act as having been right for the
moment, today it looks like just another failed policy
of dumping tax dollars into supporting politically pow
erful interests.
Between September and when he left office last
week, Bush did more to inject the federal government
into the private economic sector than any president
since FDR — not exactly a conservative legacy.
But Bush’s biggest failure may not be in the policy
details of his programs, but rather in the psychological
response he gave to big problems. After both the 9/11
disaster and the sharp economic downturn last fall,
Bush heightened a climate of fear rather than calming
the situation. That ill-served our nation.
The events of 9/11 were, of course, extreme and
tragic. But Bush miscalculated; terrorist acts like 9/11
cannot directly damage the U.S. militarily or economi
cally. Terrorism has as its goal to create psychological
fear.
It worked. Rather than calming Americans’ fear of
terrorism, Bush fed that fear. Americans were encour
aged to spy on each other, to “report suspicious
persons.” TSA was created to search little old ladies
in wheelchairs at airports who might be harboring a
bomb in their mouthwash. All the controversy over
wiretaps and other spying on American citizens only
added to this climate of fear. Americans were told that
in order to be safe, we had to be willing to cede some
of our freedoms.
Terrorism wins when Americans assent to that idea
and under President Bush, we assented far more than
we should have.
The same thing happened again last fall when Wall
Street collapsed and the Stock Market tumbled. Bush
lacked the skill — be that rhetoric or leadership — to
calm fears. Instead, he fed the fear by agreeing to
massive bailouts — with little oversight — of wealthy
corporations that had deep political connections to
both Congress and the Republican Party. Nothing he
did calmed either personal or corporate panic.
Fear was the pervasive tone of the Bush era, a
psychological baggage which I believe will dog him
into the history books. Time will gloss over many of
the policy issues, but it cannot undo the tenor of the
times.
Great men are born out of great challenges.
Bush was given great challenges, but greatness was
found wanting in the man.
Mike Buffington is editor of The Jackson Herald. He
can be reached at mike@mainstreetnews.com.