What is most disturbing about the current reports that our Fayette school board is about to perform radical surgery on the system, through a drastic slashing of expenses and school closings, is that it is so unnecessary, and of course harmful for the community.

Where there is no vision, we learn from the Scriptures, the people perish. I am afraid we have a school board without vision, which prompts me to speak up, not so much for the benefit of the clueless voters who elect our school board members as for the benefit of the nonvoting students who have to suffer the consequences. Read More»

It was four years ago that I provided, in these pages, a history of our Fayette sales tax.

There have been interesting developments since then, such as a renewed and heightened interest in taxation by some of our citizens styling themselves as the Tea Party.

We have also had a few more tax votes such as on the recent regional T-SPLOST, on July 31, which was defeated two-to-one in the Atlanta region that includes Fayette. Read More»

For some people, the sales tax is the answer to everything. Even for transportation.

With imagination — some call it vision — it is not that hard to come up with answers other than a sales tax. Negative thinking seldom produces positive results, but positive thinking does. So take a look at these ideas.

Who drives on roads? The answer: people who have a driver’s license. They’re the ones who should be interested in improving our roads, not the old ladies in the nursing home who don’t drive anywhere. Read More»

Imagine yourself down on your luck, homeless and hungry, when someone comes along who gives you one hundred dollars, but with one little catch: your money comes in the form of a certificate that can be used only for buying shoes. Nothing else. You can’t trade it or bargain with it for anything else: it’s got to go for shoes.

Well, that’s about the situation we put ourselves in when we vote for one of these special purpose local option sales taxes called SPLOST. Read More»

In a July 3 column by Scott Bradshaw, we’re asked to consider whether having unopposed local incumbents in our elections is a blessing or a problem.

Let me first explain the obvious: for an unopposed incumbent, being unopposed is largely a blessing. I have yet to see one who openly challenges anyone to “bring it on” before the qualification period expires. Read More»

Some people believe everything they’re told. Others are not so gullible.

About a week ago, my representative in Congress, Lynn Westmoreland, mailed me a large postcard purporting to offer Tax Tips, A Resource Guide for Your 2011 Tax Return. The card clearly indicated it was prepared, published and mailed at taxpayer expense.

The first “tip” was the headline Tax Day: April 16th.

That was dead wrong. The deadline this year is April 17. Read More»

Do you remember CAPIT?

CAPIT was a Fayette County local organization whose initials stood for Citizens Against Perpetually Increasing Taxes. Nice little catchy name.

CAPIT was run by a political science college professor named Roger Marietta, who would later go on to be elected mayor of Fayetteville, in 1988. He now lives in Albany, Ga., where he is mayor pro tem.

Roger was an activist, perhaps in the same stripe as Steve Brown, former Peachtree City mayor and now county commissioner. He knew how to stir things up. Read More»

Our Fayette county commission and school board are currently at the receiving end of a lawsuit seeking to compel our county to adopt district voting, and already fairly large sums of money are being spent on so-called pretrial discovery, with each side hiring alleged experts in the field of demography — the study of human populations, including their size, growth, density and distribution — who claim to be able to divine the race of the voters and who they vote for, in spite of the fact we vote anonymously and don’t disclose our race on the ballot. Read More»

Hardly a week goes by that I do not receive in the mail an invitation to a presentation, sometimes accompanied by a promise of a free meal, where the subjects on which I am to be educated include finding ways of getting Mom free nursing home care while still inheriting her estate.

Sticking the government with the cost of having old parents taken care of while keeping their money may have a certain appeal for many people, though they may piously feign indignation at the size of our annual federal deficits and our growing national debt. Read More»

It was three years ago that the citizens of Fayette County raised their sales tax to 7 percent. It stayed at that level for one year, then came back down to today’s 6 percent.

In an effort to ensure our voters were exposed to what he thought might be an informed opinion on the subject before casting an important vote, The Citizen editor, aware of my tax expertise, suggested at the time that I contribute my thoughts on what our citizens were being asked to consider. Read More»