Property tax cut in Hall County

When a county rolls back a millage rate, some of that beneficial reduction leaves the county by lowering the rate to international corporations, national corporations, and other agencies based beyond the county lines.

To produce and capture a local benefit for strictly the resident homeowners who carry the major burden for property taxes, the county, in conjunction with local legislation, should increase exemptions, specifically the homestead exemption.

That will give a 'flat rate' tax reduction, spread across the county, targeted to those who live in the county and represent the wealth base.

Hall County GOP lying?

On May 8th, I contacted Hall County in reference to a GOP political event being hosted "in conjunction" with the 'Hall County Sheriff's Office.'

The Commission did not respond.

Finally, I contacted the Commission's under paid and over worked clerk. Through her efforts, the Sheriff made a non-responsive reply.

I've demanded a press release to clarify to the public the exact role the Sheriff's Office is taking by hosting "in conjunction."
I've demanded the Sheriff's Office avoid the appearance of providing it's service and name to the campaigns of the GOP by withdrawing any unpaid or free service to the GOP.

I have no written reply and the ad remains worded:

"We are very excited to announce that we will be hosting a Community Day on Saturday, May 19th in conjunction with the Hall County Sheriff’s Office! "

To clarify my position, If the ad said, "We are very excited to announce that we will be hosting a Community Day on Saturday, May 19th in conjunction with the Southern Poverty Law Center," then I would understand the Law Center is a host and not merely making an appearance.

Here is a snap shot of the GOP's homepage.

What do you think? Is the GOP using the Sheriff's Office to attract donors? Is the GOP mixing it's brand with the Hall County Sheriff's Office for political gain?

Two days of asking Hall County for a direct response.

Nothing

Hall County's future under Tax Reform

As the Republicans silently debate their tax reform in Congress, a couple of letters in the Times provided some open and honest discussion on the future for the country under the once secretive proposal. I respond, not to those letters or the partisan work of Republican Representative Collins. I target Kevin Hassett, Republicans' Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers.

Hassett recently authored 'The Growth Effect of Corporate Tax Reform and Implications for Wages.' He boldly proposes a conservative increase of $4,000 for average households in 10 years. He weasels a bit in his paper. He writes about households earning $83,143, his chosen average income. He adds a caveat on the type of income earned, over 20% of that $83,143 comes from non-wages. I'll be more plain. His average household earns 20% of its income from something other than wages or salary. Hassett's average family earns $351 a week from things like stock option and capital gains. Let's translate that to the average family in Hall County.

The Census reports median household income for us at $50,853, some $33,000 less than Hassett calls average for all Americans. So we need to make 60% more to meet his standards. A long stretch for Hall County firefighters and police officers and bank tellers.

But, those wage earners must supplement their paycheck with $11,000 in other income to be Hassett's average type of household. I didn't make $11,000 last year on stock options, capital gains, or something called a 'bonus.'

I predict that in 10 years, the average Hall County household, will have less purchasing power than today. I predict the Hall County Republican Party will refuse to support raises for County and City employees.

So who in Hall County living in the average household will get Hassett's $4,000 increase in their income? Ask a Republican. They know.

Response to Republican repression

Recently, walking through the Oakwood Walmart, I ran into former State Representative, Carl Rogers. Like always, we talked politics. We shared a concern common to candidates and elected officials, voter participation.

Carl spent a lot of money in his campaigns for office. Lots of money. He regretted that spending, so I understood. He would have used it to pay people to go vote. He didn't care if they voted for him. He's not about buying votes or buying an election. No, he was clear on his point. He wanted people to be a part of government and every election.

Former Representative Rogers is a Republican but I'll stand by him being a good man.

His opinion matters and needed to be shared as Hall County, through its Board of Elections, declared ballot access and voter participation a requirement of democratic elections. Who would not stand with Carl on having people polled, not only on the selection of candidates, but on the issues also covered in referendums? Only Craig Lutz, the recent Republican appointee to the Elections Board and the Hall County Republican Party.

Unlike Rogers, Lutz finds democratic inclusion too expensive or 'fiscally irresponsible," his words. I won't rehash his opinion, as the Times covered his remarks. I will stand with Carl Rogers on the issue of government polling the populace through public elections and a free ballot.

The ballot belongs to the people, not to the taxpayer or a temporary government clerk, appointed by the back room leaders of one party, a party which fights only for freedom when freedom is cheap or the ultimate burden of liberty is borne on the backs of the poor.

Why I vote Democratic

As a Georgia voter trapped in Hall County, I vote as much a Democratic ticket as possible. Why? Some influence from my mother while watching Nixon/Kennedy debate. She said something like, "We're Democrats because we're poor people. Democrats are for the poor people.' That would be the very start.

Not done. The Democratic Party maintained an office/store front one block from our home. When I walked by, I always read the Kennedy 'Ask not' quote. More reinforcement. Then, always more news on that President until I associated even the Presidential seal as being Kennedy's seal, not a seal of office. Remember I turned 5 in 1960.

The 1963 assassination fixed Kennedy and the Democrats as being the only choice. I had a fist fight with my best friend in 1964 over the Goldwater/Johnson election.

Then, the war, the protests, drugs, and hippies moved me towards my father's world view. By 1972, I voted Republican in my first secret ballot.

By 1980, after taking a few college courses, watching Nixon's treason followed by Ford's pardon, and my first real world job working with a group of men/mechanics, members of the Teamsters Union, I had voted for Carter and found nothing but terror in that actor from Hollywood.

After Reagan, I became a solid Democrat for economic reasons, an ever increasing awareness of my social obligations as a humble member of the working class.

By 1990, I knew my place in the world. I had grown up as a son of a disabled Korean War veteran and the oldest male child of four children. My parents had been forced to feed me with food stamps and the free cheese package. At my birth, we lived in public housing. Later, in a shoddy home bought through the VA programs, bill collectors hounded us on Saturday mornings. Once, we had our power cut off while my parents were at work. A wonderful way to act. As teenager, even the money I made in odd jobs went towards emergency bills.

So I knew by 1986 that I would never be an uncouth member of the newly rich shunned by old money.

So I vote for the Party of social programs like food stamps, public housing, rent control, a mild pro-union attitude, Medicare, Medicaid, free public schooling, that Old Age program called Social Security, and the ghosts of the elder Kennedy sons, Jack and Bobby, and my mother's ghost, watching a black and white TV telling me in a Kenndy like speech, 'Democrats are for the poor people, not poor in spirit, nor poor in family, nor even poor in wealth. But poor through exclusion by a system often if not always tilted towards wealth and the many types of power passing sometimes as leadership.

Hall County tax cheats

Trying to meet with Hall County officials on Wednesday.

I'm a bit scared.

Rowing the same direction on road construction

Oh! I can mix my metaphors as well as the next idiot.

"Let's all row in the same direction on this road project."

So why don't I like that one? I heard it at a Republican meeting.

“I think it’s important for everybody to be rowing in the same direction on this one,” said Craig Lutz, the Hall County Board of Commissioners’ South Hall representative.

Followed shortly by, “'Trust me when I say we’ve been knocking on every single door to look at other funding opportunities,' Yamala said."

Of course we got the usual blame game quote, “'The problem is the federal government, and we’re not sure what’s coming there,' Mecum said."

Since the Goobernator is from Hall County, Georgia, no Republican mentioned the state's lack of funding. The local reporter did.

The state has made the road a temporary state route so funding can be sped up on the work — widening it between I-985 and Thompson Mill Road in Gwinnett — but so far, no money has been set aside.

So the state has no money. That's okay. The federal government has no money for roads. The county has no money for roads.

But, damn we have been rowing door to door begging other governments to fund a road widening project to nowhere. Well, from Stering on the Lake subdivision to the interstate known as I985.

So I attended a GOP meeting in an underfunded public library which the government hating, tax cutting residents of Stering on the Lake hate at the entrance to their subdivision.

But their lives would be enhanced if their commute including a State funded 4 lane road to the interstate.

Ain't that a bone headed love affair?

Who can you blame?

I heard this Republican joke today.

If Obama ate puppies on live TV, the mainstream media would report, "Obama makes cats safer!"

Right ....

If the entire congregation of Free Chapel saw Governor Nathan Deal screwing a male goat on top of the altar during Easter Sunday service, they would blame my goat.

And I don't have a goat.

Craig Lutz and Ashley Bell

This is the week for candidates to make an official declaration for public offices in Georgia.

Two candidates catch my good eye, Craig Lutz and Ashley Bell.

Mr. Lutz is currently a Hall County Commissioner. He's declared himself a candidate for the Public Service Commission. Which means he must quit his current job as Commissioner when he makes an official filing.

I'll believe it when I see it in writing.

Commissioner Lutz does not have the backing to run for that office. He'll need serious money. He has used Ashley Bell's help in raising about $10,000 for his County Commission campaign account.

But, what will Lutz do since Bell has declared himself a candidate for State School Superintendent?

I think crying is one option. Begging Bell for a donor list is another.

Lutz has made some ugly remarks about the former Democrat, Ashley Bell. I hope he remembers the public meeting where he called out for the Democratic Party to take Bell back.

Democrats didn't want him in the many months just before he kissed some serious Republican butt. They should have tossed him out like week old garbage.

So what about it Mr. Lutz and Mr. Bell? BFF or keep your hands where I can see them, dude?

Commissioner Craig Lutz accepts responsibility for canceled air travel in USA

A record number of domestic air flights have been cancelled since December 1st. Over 14,000 flights were canceled last week.

Today, in a press conference, Hall County Commissioner Craig Lutz accepted full responsibility for the cancellations.

"As you know, we have been confronted with an unexpected storm that has hit America," Commissioner Lutz did not say.

"'Some in the public, social media or decision-making positions have been ‘blameing’ the meteorologists. I began to hear things like ‘this was not expected in America’ or ‘they said this was going to all be South of America’ or there were no Watches or Warnings until snow started falling or ‘weather is just unpredictable.’"

Invoking President Kennedy and the Bay of Pigs, "Kennedy in the aftermath of the failed Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba, sought to spread the blame to the U.S. news media, particularly the New York Times. On separate occasions in 1961 and 1962, Kennedy told the Times‘ publisher and its managing editor that had the newspaper printed all it knew about the pending invasion, the country and his administration would have been spared a major foreign policy embarrassment. That is, the pre-invasion publicity would have made an assault untenable."

Lutz, had he been present for a news conference would have said, "I am not Kennedy. I am not Goobernator Deal. I'm not even Kasim Reed.

"The greatest difference between me and these failed leaders, I'm more responsible!

"This is true in my personal life where I took responsibility for $90,000 in credit card debt through the opportunity of bankruptcy.

"Now it is time for me to take responsibility for the massive number of flight cancellations in American history.

"It was my responsibility."

Guns in school

A few years ago, the Gwinnett County school system expelled a female student for carrying an unloaded gun to school. I remember very few details but my children were in the Gwinnett system at the time.

The word on the street said the young lady didn't want to attend school any more. So, she carried a small caliber semi-auto hand gun to school in her back page. It might have been a .25 or .22 bullet. She whipped it out in front of a teacher knowing the zero tolerance policy on guns.

Wow!

Now in little ol' Hall County, we have law enforcement making random checks at all the schools. I hope the increased presence has some positive effect. Maybe the parents feel better. I would. Maybe someone thinks it will stop another senseless gun worshiping murderer from killing kids.

Maybe.

Despite all the attention being given school security, we're still seeing students carrying guns to school in a back pack Then, killing the innocent before a resource officer or other law enforcement can intervene.

I might need some help here. Any one remember a school shooting being stopped by law enforcement? Don't most of these gun worshiping killers kill themselves?

So we've gone from don't carry a gun to school or you get expelled to the new policy. Carry a gun to school and get shot.

As if that makes sense. Even the most mindless killer expects to get shot, die, or spend life in prison.

Still doesn't stop them.

So my beloved Gainesville School System is arming resource officers with M4 rifles. Story from Access North Georgia.

The cost is somewhere around $3,000.

Wanna bet there's no trauma kit in the school? Nothing more than band aids in the nurse's office? Wanna bet she buys them without being reimbursed?

I'll go further. Wanna bet there's a movement among conservatives to do away with school nurses?

We have money for M4 rifles and biometic gun safes. We don't pay school nurses competitive wages. We don't stock the clinics with band aids. We won't extend Medicaid with a 100% federal subsidy.

Guns or butter has become guns or brains.

Sing to the tune of the Beverly Hillbillies

Let me tell you a story about a place called Hall.
Had a man named Deal controlling it all.
When one day he was feeling kind of rude.
Said ya'll pay my buddies or I'll even take your food.

All there is. Green gold. All for me!

Well first thing you know all his friends are billionaires.
Honest folk said you better move away from here.
Said federal prison is the place you ought to be.
So they loaded up the trucks and shipped it overseas.

Cayman Islands. Tax Shelters. No extradition.

Well now it’s time to say good bye to Deal and all his kin.
And they would like to thank you for kindly pitching in.
You'll never see them back again in this locality.
To have a big helping of prison hospitality.

Crossbar hotel. Calaboose. Jump suits. Sandals.

Ya'll don't come back, ya hear?