Gov. Deal has a bad deal for Georgia

Gov. Nathan Deal (R-GA) is a consummate master of working the system of our government to his advantage.  This has been true when he got sweetheart deals that benefited him financially, that finessed the ethics charges against him, and when he got out of financial hot water through . . . who knows what special deals with banks that wanted his favor.   His son-in-law, who declared bankruptcy to get out of a bad business had failed to declare that he had had a previous bankruptcy, while invalidated the deal.    Yet he wound up getting a lucrative job with the nursing home association that does billions of dollars of business with the state.   No connection with the governor;  oh, of course not !!!

It's that sort of thing.    Today's story about Deal however has more to do with putting one over on the people of Georgia -- yes, the people who elected him to work for them.   Here's Deal's bad deal, so aptly described by my favorite AJC editorial writer, Jay Bookman.

Cause and effect. It’s all about cause and effect, or more accurately, ignoring cause and effect.
Facing re-election this fall, Gov. Nathan Deal wants Georgia voters to give him credit for the fact that, according to the Tax Foundation, the state ranks dead last — 50th out of 50 — in state taxes collected per capita.  Presumably, this fact demonstrates excellent stewardship on the governor’s part . . .

However, Deal doesn’t want voters to blame him for the fact that Georgia schools can’t afford to keep their doors open for a full academic calendar, that Georgia’s highways and bridges are crumbling, that tuition in public colleges is soaring, that its court system is struggling, that rural hospitals are being forced to shut down, that children under the state’s protection are dying, that we have the nation’s second-highest dropout rate and that trips to get a driver’s license have once again become a nightmare. These things, we are asked to believe, are outside our governor's realm of responsibility and tell us nothing about his stewardship of the state.

In other words, we are supposed to believe that having the lowest tax collections in the country — some 33 percent below the national average — has nothing to do with the state’s inability to perform some of its most basic functions. . .


Likewise, the governor would like the voters of Georgia to be angry and outraged that the Obama administration has not yet agreed to pay hundreds of millions of dollars to deepen the port of Savannah. That's terrible, but not half as terrible as the fact that the federal government DID offer to pay hundreds of millions of dollars to provide health insurance to some half a million Georgians [which the governor refused] . . .

And any notion that the federal government’s reluctance to help Georgia in its port expansion might be affected by state officials who treat Washington as a foreign invader in every other context — wipe that thought from your mind, because cause and effect have no place here. . . .

There's more, but you get the picture.   Just more of the governor trying to work the system.  But who is getting hurt?   And will they realize it and rise up to vote Mr. Deal out of the deal?

Jimmy Carter's grandson, State Senator Jason Carter, is hoping to defeat Nathan Deal at the polls in November.   I hope he does too.   We need to put the Democrats back in charge of the state.   There might just be a chance to make a start on that with the respected new generation of Carters and Nunns running -- Jason Carter for governor and Michelle Nunn the U. S. senate.

Ralph