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Are There Real Conservatives?

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Looking For Real Conservatives

In these early days of a new General Assembly session in Georgia with a new governor in office and reorganization of the two chambers of government in Atlanta, many questions are yet to be answered. We are hearing about the plight of states across our nation who have discovered they are out of money and must find a way to present balanced budgets to their citizens. We have heard that several local and state governments are at the point of declaring bankruptcy to find a way to ultimately come out from under the heavy load of their financial obligations.

In the first week of the new session in Georgia, a report was issued by the Special Council on Tax Reform and Fairness that had recommendations to increase taxes on citizens of Georgia. I understand some of the elected officials felt that if the financial burden was going to be met with revenues tanking, the only solution was to raise taxes. The best way to shift blame in government for unpopular decisions is to appoint a special panel or study committee and let them recommend solutions that will almost always have in them an increase in taxes. Whatever the shell game might be, this year, the leaders of our state are faced with hard choices and decisions related to balancing a budget with a smaller amount of revenue available. It is too late now, but should we be able to turn back the clock to the days when revenue was increasing, it would have been a great time to hold the line on spending and to restrain from increasing the size of government.  Time does not wait on us to make right choices, and we certainly cannot turn back the clock, but there is hope that lessons have been learned causing our current crop of leaders to make right choices and keep government in check by not increasing the size or scope of government. We often hear the phrase, “Living within your means.” This axiom needs to be applied at all levels of government.  Full disclosure makes me say when I see the two words, “Reform” and “Fairness” used in a government document; I always know these are code words for “Higher taxes.” Focus groups have been formed and now it seems the more readily acceptable word to substitute for increased taxes is the word, investment; therefore, the new code word “investment” has been introduced at the Federal level. When the words, “investment” and “jobs” are used together, it seems to invoke a good feeling and people think that it means something good is a result of the investments, rather than understanding that the cost to the individual tax payer is going to be increased and taxes will be higher. Keeping a tight reign on government spending is a must in order to navigate through these tough economic waters. Though some people are telling us revenue is up, we have yet to return to the glory days when governments had more money coming in than going out. There continues to be certain people who think that if we throw enough money into the marketplace we will see a turn around in our economy. The opposite has always proven to be true. The more money that citizens are allowed to keep, the more likely they are to take the risk in expanding their business and with that, we have increased revenue coming into the coffers of government. This major truth has yet to be believed by certain people who think that bigger government and higher taxes will pull us out of the malaise in which we find ourselves today.

 It is not an acceptable solution to say that some taxes will be lower while raising other taxes. This type of shell game might fool some of the people some of the time, but with more awareness on the part of citizens, this type of slight-of-hand trick will be remembered even though we are more than a year away from the next election.  Real tax reform would recommend across the board tax cuts and allow small businesses to have more money available to risk in expanding their business which would mean more jobs and more revenue available to the government. We are still waiting on government leaders to understand this basic principle of economics. From where I stand this might be the year we discover who the real conservatives are among our elected leaders.

Ray Newman
Email: fwisbrn@aol.com

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