Inside the nuthouse: The General Assembly's nuttiest legislation
2/22/2010
EVEN for Georgia, where odd legislative proposals have long been commonplace, this current General Assembly session is shaping up as something remarkably weird. There are so many deeply flawed notions kicking around as to leave citizens utterly bewildered as to what they are actually about.
Let’s look at a few.
1. GOV. SONNY Perdue’s plan to turn four elected statewide offices that oversee specific parts of government into gubernatorial appointments is supposedly for efficiency. This executive form is familiar (the president’s Cabinet) and would involve the school superintendent plus the labor, agriculture and insurance commissioners.
Even conceding that much of the electorate may not quite know what most of these officials do, and that many who wind up picking an agriculture commissioner believe that peanuts grow on trees, it is rarely, if ever, a wise thing in a representative democracy to reduce the people’s power.
Supposedly to make its point, the governor’s office pointed out these four officials currently supervise 6,000 employees and a budget of $7.5 billion (most of it in education). Another way to look at it is that those figures reveal the potential for political party patronage.
It would be a heck of a good way to build a political machine guaranteeing Republican rule forever, not that such is viewed as being at much risk now.
This would require voter permission at the polls and is a good example of why voting “No” on simple-sounding items is considered by many to be the safest, and only, way to respond.
2. GREATER ROME has new schools and classrooms built or under construction all over its landscape, thanks almost entirely to local voters backing special-purpose, local-option sales taxes (SPLOST) for that purpose.
House Resolution 1203 and House Bill 1020 would amend this tool, now limited to actual physical things, so as to allow a SPLOST to be of longer duration and used for “maintenance and operation” of schools. Schools do need more and better reliance for their local funding, now limited to property taxes, but this is an awfully transparent gimmick.
“Maintenance” could be light/heating bills; “operation” could be teacher’s salaries.
With the state in dire budgetary straits, and schools sucking up half of its revenues and being slashed severely already, it is easy to foresee that, if passed (the voters would have to approve), this shortly would be the only way left to keep schools open after the state abandons even more of its financial support. It also means communities could never again afford to build a new school.
Perhaps the products of our schools are not yet consistently top-notch, but voters who graduated from them didn’t fall out of the back of a turnip truck.
And inside the nuthouse ...
From the Rome News-Tribune --
EVEN for Georgia, where odd legislative proposals have long been commonplace, this current General Assembly session is shaping up as something remarkably weird. There are so many deeply flawed notions kicking around as to leave citizens utterly bewildered as to what they are actually about.
Let’s look at a few.
1. GOV. SONNY Perdue’s plan to turn four elected statewide offices that oversee specific parts of government into gubernatorial appointments is supposedly for efficiency. This executive form is familiar (the president’s Cabinet) and would involve the school superintendent plus the labor, agriculture and insurance commissioners.
Even conceding that much of the electorate may not quite know what most of these officials do, and that many who wind up picking an agriculture commissioner believe that peanuts grow on trees, it is rarely, if ever, a wise thing in a representative democracy to reduce the people’s power.
Supposedly to make its point, the governor’s office pointed out these four officials currently supervise 6,000 employees and a budget of $7.5 billion (most of it in education). Another way to look at it is that those figures reveal the potential for political party patronage.
It would be a heck of a good way to build a political machine guaranteeing Republican rule forever, not that such is viewed as being at much risk now.
This would require voter permission at the polls and is a good example of why voting “No” on simple-sounding items is considered by many to be the safest, and only, way to respond.
2. GREATER ROME has new schools and classrooms built or under construction all over its landscape, thanks almost entirely to local voters backing special-purpose, local-option sales taxes (SPLOST) for that purpose.
House Resolution 1203 and House Bill 1020 would amend this tool, now limited to actual physical things, so as to allow a SPLOST to be of longer duration and used for “maintenance and operation” of schools. Schools do need more and better reliance for their local funding, now limited to property taxes, but this is an awfully transparent gimmick.
“Maintenance” could be light/heating bills; “operation” could be teacher’s salaries.
With the state in dire budgetary straits, and schools sucking up half of its revenues and being slashed severely already, it is easy to foresee that, if passed (the voters would have to approve), this shortly would be the only way left to keep schools open after the state abandons even more of its financial support. It also means communities could never again afford to build a new school.
Perhaps the products of our schools are not yet consistently top-notch, but voters who graduated from them didn’t fall out of the back of a turnip truck.
More at the Rome News-Tribune.
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