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THE JACKSON HERALD
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 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
The bailout
that wasn’t
T HE CURRENT economic
crisis was caused by the
amassing of too much
debt that people couldn’t pay back.
Now, our leaders are using even
more debt to try and bail us out.
How all that is supposed to work
is anybody’s guess. In theory
the federal government throwing
money from the rooftops is sup
posed to get the nation spending
again. The government is, in real
ity, attempting to create an artificial
spending bubble so that the eco
nomic engine will get a jump-start.
But fixing a burst economic bub
ble by creating a new bubble isn’t
the answer. Nor is the mortgaging
our children’s future with trillions
in new debt.
With the current bailout plan, the
cure may be worse than the dis
ease. Even if cranking up the print
ing presses to print more money
does stimulate the economy, the
long-term result could be runaway
inflation as the nation attempts to
figure out how to pay for the trillions
of dollars in debt we’re creating.
That is an argument the
Republicans are making, but it’s
been falling on deaf ears. The
Republicans were in charge when
the economy tanked, largely due
to their own policies. It’s difficult
to cry wolf when you were the one
slaughtering sheep just a couple
months ago.
For their part, the Democrats
don’t have a clue, either. They see
the “stimulus” legislation as a way
to fund all their special interest
programs in one massive bill. To
say this legislation has pork is an
insult to pigs.
At the state and local level, the
situation is just as bad. The state is
waiting on the federal government
to give it a bailout; that’s why those
“conservative” Republicans in the
Georgia Legislature are splitting
their session to finish in June — that
will give them time to snare their
piece of federal money.
And local governments are did
dling along hoping the boys in
Atlanta will give them a bailout,
too. It’s called “trickle down;” print
dollars in Washington, ship it to the
states so they can give it to local
governments. That way, no politi
cian at any level of government has
to make any tough decisions to cut
spending.
Meanwhile, the private sector
(except for Wall Street which is
plugged into those Washington
printing presses) is starving. Those
who actually create wealth and pro
vide jobs are not getting a bailout,
just the bill.
And politicians wonder why
nobody trusts them?
The Jackson Herald
Founded 1875 • The Official Legal
Organ of Jackson County, Ga.
Mike Buffington Co-Publisher & Editor
Scott Buffington Co-Publisher &
Advertising Manager
News Department
Angela Gary Associate Editor
Jana Adams Mitcham Features Editor
Brandon Reed Sports Editor
Kerri Testement Reporter
Sharon Hogan Reporter
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letters
‘Buy American’ provisions could kill American jobs
Dear Editor:
Caterpillar is a proud American company. We
were born in California, made our headquarters in
Illinois and maintained a strong U.S. manufacturing
base that serves the global marketplace. We have
supported the local Jefferson, Georgia community
for over 13 years. We are also proud of our global
footprint that allows us to compete and support Cat
equipment throughout the world. Today more than
half of what we produce in the U.S. is exported to
markets outside the United States.
We are also a company that will benefit from the
infrastructure component of the proposed $825
billion U.S. stimulus package. But there is one ele
ment of the stimulus proposal that greatly concerns
us - it’s the “Buy American” provisions. Why would
an American company be against a provision that
forces the U.S. government to only buy American
products? Our reasons go beyond our confidence
that we can compete and win business because of
the value of the products we produce.
Today countries from Asia to Europe are pursu
ing similar infrastructure packages to stimulate
their economies. In some cases, like China, these
proposed projects are more ambitious than those in
the United States.
And that’s the rub. Caterpillar would like to sell
U.S.-made products to infrastructure projects at
home and abroad. But if the U.S. sends the mes
sage that regardless of value, countries should only
buy locally produced products, Cat’s exports, as
well as the U.S. jobs they support, will be hurt. In
some of our Illinois factories, as much as 70 percent
of what we make is sold overseas. That’s not sur
prising given that 95 percent of the world’s consum
ers live outside our borders, and most infrastructure
growth is occurring in the developing world. The
products we manufacture in the Jefferson facility
go into engines that are used worldwide, in both
machines and power generation. Impact to global
sales could have a significant impact on the prod
ucts we make right here in Georgia.
It’s hard to be against something that sounds so
patriotic as “Buying American.” But turning inward
and embracing protectionism is what turned a bad
recession in the 1930s into the Great Depression.
Let’s show some political courage and learn les
sons from the past. Our country doesn’t need
to isolate itself from the international economy.
Rather, we need policies that will help us improve
competitiveness and grow. For starters we need
a “National Export Strategy” that keeps U.S.-made
goods in demand globally, U.S.-based companies
competitive and U.S. workers employed—including
those workers right in our hometown of Jefferson,
Georgia.
Sincerely,
James C. Johnson
Facility Manager
Caterpillar, Inc. Jefferson
The bombshell of the session
tom
crawford
IT WON’T be a huge surprise to our readers when
I note that state legislators are more concerned
about the interests of corporate CEOs than the prob
lems of ordinary Georgia citizens. That’s the way
the world works, whether we
like it or not.
Even so, what our lawmak
ers are being asked to do
for Georgia Power Co., the
electric utility that has always
had an outsized influence on
state politics, is breathtaking
in its enormity.
Georgia Power plans to add
a pair of nuclear reactors to
the ones already in place at
Plant Vogtle near Augusta to
generate electricity for future
needs. The cost to Georgia
Power of those new reactors
is estimated at $6.4 billion.
So far, no problems. Georgia is among the fastest-
growing states and at some point more electricity
will be needed. You can make a case for the con
struction of new power plants.
Georgia Power, however, wants to start charging
consumers for at least $1.6 billion of the cost of
building those new reactors in 2011 - six full years
before the project is scheduled for completion and
is actually producing electricity. The company
wants to add a surcharge to your power bill - start
ing at $1.30 a month in 2011 but compounding
to $9.10 a month by 2017 - for power plants that
haven’t been built, haven’t received the go-ahead to
operate, and won’t generate a single kilowatt hour
of electricity for at least six years.
If that sounds like a sweet deal for Georgia Power,
it is. Most corporations that undertake a large
capital project assign the costs and risks of that
venture to their shareholders. If it succeeds, they
make money. If it fails, they write it off as a busi
ness loss.
Georgia Power wants to save its shareholders all
that risk and let the average Georgia homeowner
assume it instead - if the project goes bad or the
new reactors don’t work, the money at stake would
be those early payments from consumers.
Think about it this way: suppose you planned to
buy a new automobile, but were told by the dealer
you had to start paying for it now and you would
get a vehicle that might or might not work six years
from now. Anybody with common sense would
say no to that proposition - but that’s what Georgia
Power expects our elected lawmakers to give them
by passing SB 31.
We have seen this tactic before. In the early
1980s, when the utility was planning the first two
nuclear units at Plant Vogtle, Georgia Power tried
to get the General Assembly to approve the same
“Construction Work in Progress” procedure that
would allow the company to start collecting early
from ratepayers.
Those initial nuclear units, we were told back
then, would cost $660 million to build. By the time
the nuclear generators were actually in operation,
however, the cost had escalated to nearly $9 billion
- thirteen times higher than originally estimated.
If they’re telling you that the new units will cost
$6.4 billion, you can bet that the cost will have at
least tripled by the time 2017 rolls around - with a
corresponding increase in any “Construction Work
in Progress” surcharge that has been added to your
monthly bill.
“That’s the bombshell of the session,” said Sen.
George Hooks, who has seen the legislative carnival
in action for many years. “It’s going to mean a huge
rate increase for the people back home and they’re
going to be mad when they find out. Why are we
doing this?”
While there is some uneasiness among a few
legislators, there are powerful lawmakers working
to please Georgia Power: Sen. Don Balfour, Senate
Majority Leader Chip Rogers and Senate Majority
Whip Mitch Seabaugh have put their signatures on
SB 31. If the bill goes to the House, power brokers
like Speaker Pro Tern Mark Burkhalter will be very
sympathetic to it. If an adopted bill goes to Gov.
Sonny Perdue, whose chief of staff is a retired
Georgia Power executive, he very likely will sign it.
It’s a great deal for Georgia Power and its share
holders. For the consumers who will get the tab,
maybe not so much.
I am told by a veteran lawmaker that a prominent
utility executive has been calling legislative leaders
about SB 31 and asking, “Where’s my hamburger?”
“They’re asking us for hamburger,” the legisla
tor said glumly, “and they’re going to give us a
Whopper.”
Tom Crawford is the editor of Capitol Impact’s
Georgia Report. He can be reached at tcrawford@
capitolimpact.net.
mike
buffington
Octuplets raise
troubling issues
1 LIKE KIDS. Used to be one myself. But
the birth of octuplets following fertility
treatments to a woman in California
who already had six children, is unmarried,
unemployed and living at home with her
mother, raises some troubling ethical — and
practical —questions.
There was a time when having large fami
lies was common. An agrarian society often
demanded large families as farm labor,
in part because
childhood
deaths from
disease was
high and family
farm labor was
an economic
essential.
But fam
ily sizes waned
with the migra
tion from farms
to factories and
with the advent
of better medi
cal care. The
economics that
made large fami
lies necessary in the agrarian community
became detrimental in an urban and post
industrial society.
But families are not just economic units,
they are also social constructs that carry a
variety of personal and religious underpin
nings. Some of that can be found in the
various faiths that promote high birth rates
among members. And births are at the
center of the nation’s most divisive socio
political issue, abortion.
Politically and socially, this nation has
always been squeamish about the discus
sion of family size. While some nations try
to limit the number of children a couple can
have, our culture has more or less accepted
a variety of family sizes and situations.
Unwed births are — for better or worse —
common. Whether large families or small
families, we’ve always viewed family size
choices as personal decisions that others
should respect.
In some cases, we’ve celebrated the large
families of movie stars who jet around the
globe adopting children from other nations.
At the other end, we also accept that many
people simply don’t want to have children.
But for all our acceptance of personal
choice, the birth of these octuplets to some
one who appears to not have the financial
or personal resources to care for them is
troubling. That is magnified even more by
the fact that the birth of these children was
no accident, but rather came as a result of
scientific advancement and fertility treat
ment.
A part of us wants to shake the young
mother and her doctor and shout, “What
WERE you thinking?” Is it fair to bring chil
dren into the world under circumstances
that would be challenging for anyone, much
less someone who appears to lack the
resources to care for them? Would we feel
differently if this young woman were a multi
millionaire and had the means to pay for a
dozen nannies to work 24/7?
On the other hand, we also recognize that
this is a slippery slope. Without evidence of
real neglect, do we have a right to second-
guess what this young woman has chosen
for herself? If she finds a way to make it hap
pen and raise all of these children success
fully, who are we to criticize her?
While those octuplets are the cause de
jour, these kind of ethical issues involving
children and families are common. I get a
lot of phone calls from people upset about
DFACS decisions, sometimes that DFACS
has unwarrantedly taken a child from a
home, other times that DFACS has been too
slow to remove a child from a neglectful
situation.
These are difficult issues because they
tread across personal boundaries that our
society is uncomfortable broaching. The
structure of a family is almost sacrosanct
— conventional or blended, same-sex or sin
gle, with or without financial ability — indi
vidual family units exist in a variety of flavors
and we are loath to second-guess in public
the personal choices people make. It’s just
not in the genetics of our democratic soci
ety to dictate how others should live.
And yet, there is something very troubling
about the events surrounding the birth of
those tiny octuplets to a woman whose
motive appears out of sync with reality.
Very troubling, indeed.
Mike Buffington is editor of The Jackson
Herald. He can be reached at mike@main-
streetnews.com.