The Gap between the Rich and the Poor continues to grow!

This editorial was published in the Dawson News and Advertiser on January 9, 2012.  The numbers are scary, and no one seems to care except the Democrats!

We Need Jobs!

As we begin the New Year I can’t help but think of the millions of Americans who continue to suffer as a result of the “greatest recession” since the great depression.  I am trying to learn as much as I can about what happened to bring our country and the world to the brink of economic destruction.  So far I’ve gotten a great deal of information from two books I have read.  “The Price of Civilization” by Jeffrey Sachs and “The Big Short” by Michael Lewis have great explanations of the causes and results of what has happened over the past 30 to 35 years. Unfortunately, reading these books just makes me madder! 

I believe that the Democratic Party is the party of fairness and security for all Americans.  But things just aren’t fair anymore and Americans have lost the security of knowing that if they work hard, they will be fine.  Our Tea Party Columnist, who calls himself an Old American, keeps talking about how we liberals are conducting class warfare.  He also mentions what he calls the liberal media who forgives and or forgets, what in his mind, are the errors of President Obama.  Then he uses the term “Fair and Balanced”, right out of the headlines of Fox News.  Does he actually think that the news from Fox News is fair and balanced?  A recent study found that people who watch Fox News actually know less about what is going on in the world than people who watch no news at all!  Many of his quotes come directly from the Heritage Foundation web page.  I guess the Heritage Foundation, Americans for Prosperity, and Freedom Works are where he gets his “fair and balanced ideas!”

But as President Obama has said, “it is not class warfare, it is math”.  The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) recently completed a study on income inequality (The Washington Post, 10/26/11).  It shows that the after-tax incomes of the middle class have grown at about 1 percent per year from 1979 to 2007.  During that time the top 1% increased 281 percent and the top 20% has increased 105%.  It is the feeling of many economists that the Bush Tax cuts exacerbated these differences.  During this time period the top tax rate dropped from 70% to 35%.  Of course, the Heritage Foundation took this information and told the folks that read their website that this data is flawed and these huge discrepancies in income really don’t exist.  I haven’t read what they say about the recently released 2010 census data.  This data shows that nearly 50% of Americans have fallen into poverty or are scraping by on income that classifies them as low income.  What the Tea Party wants us to believe is that these folks are there because they are lazy—they just don’t know how to work hard.  I would imagine they probably agree with Newt Gingrich who says that 10 year old children of poor families should be put to work as janitors in our schools so they can learn what it means to work.  In fact Robert Rector, research fellow at the Heritage Foundation says these folks can’t really be poor because they live in nice houses.  Does he mean we need our low income citizens to be living in cardboard boxes in order to be classified as poor?  Maybe he should go and talk to some of the families who can’t buy food and clothing for their children and can’t afford medical care. To the 48% of Dawson County residents whose families are making less than $50,000 a year (low income to poverty), I don’t think you are lazy or don’t work hard.  I do think you have been treated unfairly and it is time we got back to treating all Americans with fairness and security! 

I watched 60 minutes on CBS a few weeks ago where they highlighted the plight of a group of Americans who were at one time considered middle class.  These folks have lost their jobs and are in process of losing their homes because of the financial dealings of some of our banks and Wall Street gurus over the past thirty years.  Those bankers and financiers are living wealthy lives now, while hard-working Americans are suffering because of the greed and unscrupulous business dealings of those individuals and their companies.

Hopefully the New Year will find our politicians recognizing that their job is not doing whatever it takes to get re-elected and amassing power for their political parties.  Their job is representing all of the people of this great country. They need to begin working like legislators; not politicians and solve the problems that are affecting so many Americans.

Governor Deal Visits Dawsonville

Governor Nathan Deal visited Dawsonville in December and talked about how great it was he cut 14,000 jobs.  Then in his State of the State Address he basically ignored the facts that I presented in this editorial in the Dawson News and Advertiser.  HE HAS NOT PLANS TO CREATE JOBS IN GEORGIA!!

Governor Deal, Where are the Jobs?

I read with great interest the two articles in our local papers about Nathan Deal’s visit to the Dawson County Republican/Tea Party meeting two weeks ago.  I wasn’t able to attend but sent in two questions.  From the articles I read it looks like the questions weren’t answered.  One question was why he appointed to the 7 member all male/white board which enforces HB87, Phil Kent, a known member and leader of anti-immigration hate groups (Southern Poverty Law Institute).  That wasn’t answered but this issue deserves a separate column.  The other question had to do with how he planned to create jobs in Georgia.  That wasn’t answered either.   In fact he bragged about the fact that he eliminated 14,000 jobs in our state!

First some facts about what has happened in Georgia since 2001 when Republicans took over the Gold Dome.  This data comes from the Georgia Budget and Policy Institute which gathers its information from places like the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

• Georgia lost 351,400 jobs - third most nationwide - since the financial crisis began, and ranks dead last in job growth since the official start of the recovery in June 2009
• Georgia has lost a greater number of jobs than all but two other states since the recession started in December 2007, and unlike the vast majority of states, has continued losing jobs at an alarming pace
• Georgia's unemployment rate since 2000 has nearly doubled from 5.2 percent to 10.3 percent; September 2011 marked the 50th consecutive month that Georgia's unemployment rate outpaced the national average

The jobs which Deal eliminated were government jobs.  Deal and his friends are proud that he was able to do that!  But what exactly do these lost jobs mean?  It means that teachers, firefighters, police, health care workers, librarians, DOT workers repairing our road and bridges, and social service workers, lost their jobs.  Real people had these jobs!  Sure there were probably some jobs that could have been eliminated, but what he and Governor Purdue did is a big part of why Georgia is near the top in unemployment in this country!  Hey, Gov. Deal and Lt. Gov. Cagle have government jobs!   Maybe we should just eliminate theirs, especially since instead of creating, they boast of eliminating jobs!

Then apparently Deal talked about two other problems our state is facing.  One is the high incarceration rate in Georgia.  He is right, that is expensive.  But if we fixed one of the largest problems we have in education, the high dropout rate, our rate of incarceration would go down also.  I agree with Deal that one way to do this would be to strengthen our dual enrollment and career classes.  But instead of strengthening education, Deal is talking about firing teachers and making the good teachers who remain deal with teaching larger size classes.  I am sure he is drawing his idea from headlines over the past few months that smaller class sizes are not necessarily better.  But he is ignoring the rest of the information from these studies that say for some students, especially average and at-risk students, smaller class sizes are better.  There are many factors to consider with this issue and just raising class sizes across the board is not the answer.  I am sure the teachers trying to teach our young people how to write are thrilled with the idea that instead of trying to teach 150 children they face the prospect of perhaps having 200 or 250 children.  Does Gov. Deal actually think that the best college students are looking at that prospect and choosing teaching over some other field?

So I ask Governor Deal again.  What are you doing to increase employment in Georgia?  It appears that all you have on your mind is cutting jobs.  I am sure when the Heritage Foundation starts working on our budget this winter, they will make the same suggestions—cut programs for the middle and lower income citizens, cut taxes for the wealthy, and give cash incentives to large corporations like the $200,000 he gave to Delta last year.  Same old, same old Republican tactics.  It hasn’t worked in 30 years and I doubt it will work now!  Georgia deserves better!