If the garbage tax actually becomes practice in Lee County it shall necessitate a new agency within the tax collection department. The complexity of compiling and billing for garbage fees has proven to be beyond the ability of our commissioners. So, now they want to forward that job to the tax collector.
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Our village seems to be broken. I am recently informed by an education association that 80 percent of children in kindergarten through fifth grade in America do not go to a church. How sad! And at once, how very frightening.
For measuring success, I am a firm believer in the method which considers that “the proof is in the pudding”. So, where is our proof that running our country without God is working successfully? Is the fact of our bigger homes, lots of technology, good food, and fancier clothes proof that we are succeeding? What goes on inside those bigger homes is the greatest divorce rate ever known, the highest crime rate in history, rampant dysfunctional parenthood, epidemic drug and alchohol addiction and a national degree of education in shambles.
All this follows on the heels of the greatest and longest uninterrupted period of prosperity in the history of our nation. If I was correctly informed that only 20 percent of our children attend a church, I believe it stands to reason that there is great danger that peer group pressure will cause that small pivot to diminish in size in our future. If so, then we must be doomed to experience more of what we are currently getting.
Take stock of your life at this moment. How do you like what you are getting? Can you describe your life as being filled by happiness, joy, and peace? Do you want life to continue for you and your children exactly as it is today?
We turn out by the millions to vote for politicians who promise to make life better for us. But, we cannot turn out equally to educate ourselves and our children in the word of God. We have history (read a bible) to document the successful results of turning to God. We have the current state of our nation to document the result of dependency upon man. This past week, there were five pages of home foreclosure ads in the Lee County Ledger. These are not the kind of village conditions in which I want to live or see children experience. Yet, this is the result of hope and change promised to us by men.
We have been decieved many times by men, both well-meaning and not. Men do not have the power to provide happiness, joy, and peace. We have never been deceived by God. Shall we pass along a broken village to our children or shall we return to God who gave us the prosperity that we enjoyed in the past? I say we should stick with The Winner and return to including God in all our public affairs. He is easy to find. He’ll show up every time you ask Him in.
Herbert Gladin
Leesburg
Coming to a farm near you: Commercial drivers licenses for tractor riding on your own land.
While most of us have been distracted with the debt ceiling issue for the last month or so, the rest of government has continued working on ways to make our life better.
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Congestion on our roads costs the U.S. an estimated $145 billion annually in wasted time, repairs and operating expenses. That’s an unnecessary burden that our economy is in no shape to carry.
Yet, Washington seems to be toying with short-term transportation plans and cuts to transportation funding. That’s no way to remedy America’s gridlock. Instead, Congress should pass a long-term (at least six years), well-funded surface transportation bill that allows for real road, bridge, rail and transit improvements.
New transportation projects will create thousands of new jobs in and of themselves, but that’s small potatoes compared to how improved transportation and logistics efficiency will boost our overall economic picture.
Our economy can’t grow, if cars and trucks can’t go. Tell your Congressman it’s time to get Georgia and the nation rolling again.
Sincerely,
William A. DiRico, Jr.
President – Southeast Division
Martin Marietta Materials
The nation’s 400 richest people have more combined wealth than the 80 million American households that comprise the heart of the middle class plus every American with less. Wealth is more concentrated in a few hands than ever before. Read the rest of this entry »
Those who have reaped most of the recent economic gains must share the sacrifice if we are to fix the federal budget deficit fairly. Many are willing to do their part to make America strong.
The lowest qualified bid by the most competent contestant traditionally wins the government contract. Unfortunately, the “Change” gang now wants to fiddle with this decades-old, generally reliable formula.
President Obama hopes to throw another item onto the scale as bureaucrats weigh bids: political donations. He could sign an executive order any day now that would instruct federal officials to consider the political contributions of prospective government contractors. While this move is being portrayed as a matter of increased transparency, it will actually fuel unintended consequences and indirectly overturn an important Supreme Court decision on free speech.
Forcing companies to disclose political gifts supposedly will expose covert “pay-to-play” schemes and ensure that private industry does not unduly influence Washington’s decisions when awarding lucrative contracts. Rather than depoliticize procurement, this practice would empower public officials to scrutinize a particular company’s political philanthropy. The Obama administration’s supporters could score government deals while opponents leave with empty pockets and a simple message: “If you want our checks, show us yours.”
The executive order could transport such old-fashioned, Chicago-style wheeling and dealing from Lake Michigan to the Potomac.
This executive order – drafted in April – requires contractors to disclose annual donations of more than $5,000 that were made in the past two years and paid to political candidates, parties or independent political groups. Directors, officers and other top managers would have to declare their personal political contributions from the past two years – even if they were made without their employers’ knowledge or consent.
This order is in part designed to thwart last year’s Citizen’s United Supreme Court decision, which lifted certain restrictions on the donations corporations and labor unions can make to campaigns and independent organizations.
Congressional Democrats quickly tried to counteract that ruling by re-limiting the third-party donations. But a House-approved bill sputtered in the Senate.
Since the legislation will not be passed, Obama is trying to accomplish that same goal through the executive order. A clothing company would have to reveal its donations to a conservative advocacy nonprofit before bidding to manufacture military uniforms. A landscaping firm would have to list its checks to a liberal third- party group before applying to maintain a national park.
Clearly, such rules could foster political discrimination. Obama would enable his administration to deliver literally billions of dollars in government contracts to pro-Democrat businesses while denying billions to pro-Republican firms.
And when the GOP takes the White House again, that administration could turn around and practice the exact same kind of discrimination against Democrat-friendly contractors.
And the favoritism would not necessarily be confined to contracting work. The entire federal government would be made aware of private firms’ political affiliations. Other agencies could use that information to determine where and how to award billions of dollars.
Even the appearance of political favoritism would be a problem.
The Agriculture Department, for example, might hire a company to upgrade 30 regional offices. That firm may have backed Obama’s campaign and other Democratic causes. It also could finish its work on time, under budget, and with elegant results. Nonetheless, a losing, pro-Republican bidder might cry foul – even though it lost to a truly superior bidder, picked by honest public servants with no partisan axes to grind.
When awarding contracts, federal decision-makers should consider only one issue: the bidders’ merits. Officials should evaluate the price and quality of the products and services on offer, the supplier’s performance under previous contracts and how closely each bid follows federal contract rules.
Imposing campaign-disclosure requirements on government contractors sets the table for a feast of patronage based not on the content of each contractor’s character, but on the color of his PAC money.
Thomas A. Schatz
Washington, D.C.
(Schatz is president of Citizens Against Government Waste.)
Most of our citizens are busy working(if lucky enough to have a job) and raising families. This was my situation for many years and I rarely was able to see the 7 o’clock news. So my question to you, are you aware of the changes taking place in our country and do they make you happy?
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There are a lot of comments online concerning the fight between the Lee County commissioners and the tax commissioner over who will collect garbage fees, the majority favoring the tax commissioner.
This is going to court and if I believe if what I read in the Albany Herald, it will be a long fight all the way to the Georgia Supreme Court. Which brings to mind another story I recently read about Randolph County going broke. They owe the federal government more than $800,000 in back payroll taxes and now have the feds putting a lien on the county and all because they went to court trying to fire their school superintendent.
Could the same happen here in Lee County? Let’s look at the facts. Lee County is under tight fiscal budget restraints; when I asked my county commissioner if they had money in the budget for this, the answer was no. the county is required to pay for both attorneys and we all know attorneys cost a lot. I don’t believe county insurance will cover this, since the county is the one instigating the lawsuit and when asked, my county commissioner had no idea or estimate on the worst case cost for lawsuit.
So is this a wise lawsuit? We all know the only real winner will be the attorneys! And the loser? You the taxpayer. You’ve got to pay the bill, all because the county can’t collect the garbage bills, got itself stuck by a previous set of commissioners in a 25-year garbage collection contract, and sees this as the easy way out.
Mike Sabot
Smithville
Mr. Hogencamp, let me begin by saying that I certainly believe in freedom of speech and freedom of the press. With that being said, I hope that you do, also.
With Mothers Day approaching I feel compelled to stand up and tell you how proud I am of my son Joey Pait. Your headlines this week amaze me. The fact that you were actually begging the fire department for information shows how little you really know. It is a fact that my son was represented at his trial by Jerry Brimberry and William Carswell. Yes, the very nephew of your fire chief.
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