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THE BANKS COUNTY NEWS
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 26, 2008
Editor: Angela Gary
Phone: 706-367-2490
E-mail: AngieEditor@aol.com
Website: www.mainstreetnews.com
Opinions
“Where the press is free and every man
able to read, all is safe.”
— Thomas Jefferson
‘KISS’ system works
well for about everything
Is there anything government can do without creat
ing a boondoggle? Even doing something good, like
sending back some of our tax money, is mired by
bureaucratic overspending. The latest report is that
the IRS will spend $40 million to send out letters
telling us how much money each of us will receive.
That is absurd.
It is obvious that the KISS system is the best way
to do almost everything. For those of you who do
not know, that stands for “Keep It Simple, Stupid.”
The simple way of putting cash back in the pock
ets of American taxpayers is
to not take it from us in the
first place. It costs millions
of dollars for the IRS to seize
the money from our payroll
checks, millions more for
Congress to pass a law send
ing some of it back, and more
millions for the bureaucrats to
create the system of refunding
the money. For every dollar
they refund to us, they will
spend many more dollars to
accomplish their task.
There is a simple way of
accomplishing this goal. Don’t take the money out
of our pockets in the first place. Congress can sim
ply vote to reduce the payroll tax rates, thus leaving
more of our salaries to us to spend as we think best.
That can be done quickly. It does not involve addi
tional cost to the IRS. And the effect of the action
will be long lasting.
All the IRS will have to do is to publish a new
withholding schedule to employers. By applying the
new schedule, employers will withhold less of our
money thus increasing the amount we have to spend.
That is the simple way.
But then, what would the bureaucrats do to earn
their money? They would not need to spend the extra
hours figuring out how much to send back to each
taxpayer. They would not need to spend $40 million
to tell us how much we will get back. They will not
have to print and mail the millions of checks.
But for some reason politicians and bureaucrats
insist on having as much of our money as possible
pass through their hands. I suppose it makes them
feel magnanimous to think they are giving us some
thing, even though it is our own money they are giv
ing back.
The problem is that when our money passes
through their hands, a substantial part of it sticks to
their fingers.
Government bureaucrats simply do not understand
a basic principle of economics. Government does not
generate any wealth. Economic value represents the
worth of goods and services created by our labor.
Every cent they spend has to be taken from American
workers in one form or another. All government does
is reduce the value of our labor by the amount of
economic waste they create.
If government is truly concerned about boosting
our economy, they will stop unnecessarily taking
away the results of our labor and leave our money in
our pockets. That is the simple way. But when has
government ever done anything simply?
frank
gillispie
Frank Gillispie is a contributing columnist for The
Banks County News. E-mail comments about this col
umn to frankgillispie671@msn.com.
The Banks County News
Founded 1968
The official legal organ of Banks County, Ga.
Mike Buffington Co-Publisher
Scott Buffington Co-Publisher /Ad. Manager
Angela Gary Editor
Chris Bridges Sports Editor
Sharon Hogan Reporter
Anelia Chambers Receptionist
April Reese Sorrow Church News
The Bankers' Tale
Gov. Roy Barnes drove one of the
last nails into his political coffin in
2002. He forced passage of a law to
rein in predatory lenders gone wild.
Lobbyists for lenders were stunned at
the way they were run over by Barnes,
but they swore to get even.
The law didn’t remain intact but
a year. Gov. Sonny Perdue and his
Republicans trashed it as one of their
premier acts after taking over. A good
ly number of turncoat Democrats,
elected on pro-consumer platforms,
joined in the crusade to restore preda
tory lending to its former unregulated
vigor. After all, it had been one of the
state’s most profitable industries.
A lot has happened since Barnes
took a poke at the predators.
In the legislative session of 2003,
banking lobbyists warned that the
Barnes law was so restrictive that
it would shut down the mortgage
business in Georgia. No one (mean
ing Wall Street) would buy such
encumbered loans, moaned Georgia’s
alarmed lenders.
Sen. Bill Stephens, Perdue’s Senate
floor leader, announced that his boss,
the governor, was about to receive a
letter from mortgage giant Freddie
Mac saying that Barnes’ effort to
curb predatory lending would strike
a damaging and perhaps fatal blow at
Georgia moneylenders. Such a warn
ing never arrived, yet news that it was
on the way was enough to do the job.
The Barnes law was amended to
death. Team Perdue killed provisions
cracking down on lending rip-offs and
high-fee mortgages made to people
who could not afford them. Happy
days returned to the lenders’ board
rooms. The building boom continued.
Just about anybody could get a loan.
By the end of 2003, the number of
foreclosures in Georgia shot up about
60 percent, from 8,416 in 2002 to
14,043.
In the same
year in Georgia,
the FBI reported
a potential loss
of $15.4 million
in fraudulent
mortgages. By
2004, the esti
mated mortgage
damages jumped
nearly threefold,
to a whopping
$44.2 million.
Also in 2004, Fulton and DeKalb
became the first- and third-ranked
counties in the nation with the highest
rates of mortgage fraud, according to
the Mortgage Asset Research Institute.
By 2007, Georgia had the seventh-
highest foreclosure rate and one of the
highest bankruptcy rates in the nation.
In addition, delinquent borrowers try
ing to avoid going under discovered
that Georgia had perhaps the weakest
consumer protection laws in the coun
try. Borrowers’ attorneys reported dif
ficulty even in tracing loans that had
been sold and resold (and resold).
The few months in which Georgia
could boast of having a model con
sumer protection law was mostly
forgotten.
Wall Street banks, which allegedly
had warned Georgia of being overly
regulated, were on the ropes, hemor
rhaging billions of dollars in paper
that had become virtually worthless.
The stock market reeled.
Georgia’s elected leaders appeared
oblivious to the growing crisis, partly
triggered by the imprudent lending
practices in their own backyards.
Several prominent lawmakers, led by
Speaker Glenn Richardson, continued
to pound the table in favor of massive
tax cuts even as state revenues sagged
and a recession appeared inevitable.
While the Legislature remains in
session and on the verge of chaos,
Gov. Sonny Perdue packs his bags for
an extended trip to China.
And state Rep. Ron Sailor, who had
played a key role in torpedoing the
lending regulations, waves goodbye to
the cameras as he departs the Capitol.
Sailor had resigned his House seat
after pleading guilty to federal money
laundering charges. He also had set a
new record for truancy in the General
Assembly, having missed more than
90 percent of the votes in that body.
Ironically, Sailor will be remem
bered most for a single commit
tee vote he cast in 2003. Sailor, a
Democrat, cast the deciding vote on
the House Banking Committee to gut
Barnes’ law restricting predatory lend
ers.
One might wonder whether some
old-timers had lost their voices and
their memories as they watched in
silence while Perdue and his allies
ripped apart regulations to protect
consumers. The governor had traveled
this route before.
In the 1990s, then-state Sen. Perdue
led the legislative charge to deregu
late the sale of natural gas. As the
bill sailed to passage, he promised
that coming lower gas prices would
be a boon to Georgia consumers.
Observers at the time said Perdue
enjoyed his finest days as the pied
piper for gas deregulation. And look
what happened. Consumers were
forced to become expert in natural
gas-price speculation to avoid being
swamped by the ensuing high prices.
You can reach award-winning
columnist Bill Shipp at P.O. Box
2520, Kennesaw, GA 30156, e-mail:
shipp1@bellsouth.net, or Web
address: billshipponline.com.
bill
shipp
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The Banks County News has estab
lished a policy on printing Letters to
the Editor.
We must have an original copy of
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Members of our staff will not type
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The address and phone number
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the writer requests it. Mail to,
The Banks County News, P.O. Box
920, Homer, Ga. 30547.
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Letters may also be edited to
meet space requirements. Anyone
with questions on the policy
is asked to contact editor Angela
Gary at AngieEditor@aol.com or by
calling 706-367-2490.
News department contact numbers
Anyone with general story ideas,
complaints or comments about the
news department is asked to call edi
tor Angela Gary at 706-367-2490.
She can also be reached by e-mail
at AngieEditor@aol.com.
Anyone with comments, ques
tions or suggestions relating to the
county board of commissioners,
county government, county board of
education, Maysville City Council
and crime and courts is asked to
contact staff member Chris Bridges
at 706-367-2745 or by e-mail at
chris@mainstreetnews.com.
Bridges also is sports edi
tor of the paper and covers local
high school, middle school and
recreation sports.
Anyone with comments, ques
tions or suggestions relating to
Alto, Lula, Baldwin and Gillsville,
should contact Sharon Hogan at
706-367-5233 or by e-mail at
sharon@mainstreetnews.com.
Calls for information about the
church page should go to April
Reese Sorrow at 706-677-3491.
Church news may also be e-mailed to
asorrow@mainstreetnews.com.
The Banks County News web
site can also be accessed at
www.mainstreet.news.com.
Trip home
helps keep life
in perspective
“Home is a place you grow up want
ing to leave, and grow old wanting to
get back to.”
• ••
This past weekend allowed me the
chance to get back home.
It was my first trip in some time and
I must admit it was a needed one. The
family gathered for my brother’s birth
day and the peaceful, spring day was
just what the doctor ordered after sev
eral busy work weeks. Spring does bring
nicer weather in our part of the world,
but it also brings a slew of spring sports
which keeps me and the other sports
reporters at our
family of newspa
pers running from
event to event.
Throw in the
usual meetings and
other assignments
and the body starts
to feel it after a
while. That’s why a
trip back home was
such a welcome
thing this past
weekend.
I haven’t been
a resident of my hometown for almost
15 years now. It seems strange to think
about it. When you consider how much
time has ticked by in 15 years, then it
suddenly strikes you just how much has
happened in your life since then.
It has been said you truly never appre
ciate something until it’s gone and I
believe that’s true when it comes to my
hometown, the central Georgia town of
Monticello. I spent my first 18 years
as a permanent resident of the small
Georgia town and still considered it my
home base even during the four years I
was off at college.
It wasn’t until I began my first full
time job that I had a new address and
considered myself a resident of another
city. Even though, it wasn’t truly home.
That designation would always apply to
the little town of Monticello in which I
spent my formative years and recall with
such fondness.
The weather was nice this weekend
during my return trip. That certainly
added to the enjoyment of it although
to be honest it could have been bad
weather and I still would have benefited
from the trip.
There’s no other place that I look
forward to going to as much. There’s no
other town I can simply drive through
and look at certain places and have so
many memories flood back. Of course,
there’s no other town that is my home
town.
To this day, I still enjoy going around
the town square which has been featured
in such movies as “My Cousin Vinny”
and “Murder in Coweta County.” I still
enjoy driving by my old school as I try
to figure out how in the world almost
two decades has gone by since I gradu
ated.
I often make it a point to drive past
the town’s weekly newspaper office, the
place which helped me on my career
path back during my senior year of
high school. I still have the first article
I wrote secured in a scrapbook. The
article itself is not much to look at, but it
reminds me of where my career began.
When the time came to leave and
return to my current home, I thought
of old friends, some of which I lost
touch with years ago. I wondered where
life’s journey had taken them. Many,
no doubt, would have families of their
own. I wondered if they thought of
their hometown the same way I do. I
wondered if they remembered the crazy
things we did in our carefree youth.
Home is a great thing, maybe the best
of things. Memories of home are also
great. They remain with us long after we
have moved on in life. Still, no matter
how long we have gone, our hometown
seems to call to us like a lighthouse calls
to a passing ship.
I thought of these things this past
weekend and made it a point to not wait
so long before my next visit home. In
fact, I’m ready now.
Chris Bridges is a reporter for The
Banks County News. Contact him at
706-367-2745 or e-mail comments to
chris@mainstreetnews.com.