Sunday, February 26, 2017

Electing the Wrong Candidates

If you look at candidate websites, you will find an “issues” section that should include their high priority issues.  If these issues are not priority issues, we should not consider them. If you look at the “about” section, you should see a resume or at least a summary of past work. This informs us about what they might know and who they have been associated with. That can tell us about their world-view.

Up until recently, candidates have been encouraged to not offend anybody. I call this the “straight-jacket dance”, where campaign managers coach candidates to “not offend” any voters.  It is far more important for these candidates to “tell the truth”. Trump is the best role-model to watch and learn from him. Like Trump, candidates should be able to fund their own campaigns without special interest money.

Those who run for office often believe too much in government. Their stated priorities might include activities that have an emotional appeal like Police, Fire, Parks, Schools or other expenses.  If they don’t recognize that sewers, water, roads and highways are a priority, I won’t vote for them.  These are the most expensive pieces of infrastructure these utility managers are given to take care of.

I don’t like Bonds used by government entities to fund big projects unless the projects increase our water supplies. School Boards routinely issue Bonds to build unnecessary schools. States use Bonds to float their overspending and debts.  But bonds cost double, like a home mortgage. I can understand why a young family will buy a house and begin to build equity. If they can afford a 15 year loan, they will save a fortune in interest charges.  But government sells 30 year Bonds at 5% and their $10 million project ends up costing $20 million. This makes no sense unless inflation is entrenched over 5%.

If they really understood economics, these politicians would be working to unleash the private sector to improve the economy rather than subsidizing developers with tax holidays and squandering tax dollars to subsidize campaign contributors.

I keep track of scores published on websites. I like conservative review scorecard for the US House and Senate and electtherightcandidate.us for the Georgia House and Senate. If their votes on bills are unconstitutional, they get low scores. Most of their scores are abysmal.

The Georgia legislature does a great job of supporting special interests and a lousy job representing the voters and upholding the US Constitution (as written). Corporations are now in charge of what legislation is allowed to pass, not the voters.


Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader

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