This is Viewpoints for Monday, January 22, 2018

Fool me once

When Macon and Bibb County consolidated several years back we were told of all the savings we would have due to consolidation. Well it seems we have not saved money and it’s costing us more. Not only did our property taxes increase dramatically, now our elected officials want to add more to our plate. One or more SPLOST are being pushed. These elected officials say with these additional taxes it will keep our property taxes from increasing even more. They might fool me once, but not again. How’s it working for you?

Message to Nancy

Would somebody please help me; and let Nancy Pelosi know, that every time I get a letter from her (or representative), I’m going to double my donation to the Republicans!

Ranting back and forth

Walker Smith’s Jan. 16 reply to my Jan. 14 letter, about President Trump, deserves a response.

Actually, there isn’t a lot in Smith’s letter that I disagree with. The decline in unemployment, the upturn in the economy and the surge in the stock market are indeed encouraging, though the unemployment numbers have for years been rigged to be artificially low and a president’s (any president’s) direct effect on the economy is debated by economists. The apparent defeat of ISIS, after Barack Obama’s lackluster performance in that regard and George W. Bush’s bumbling (yes, it was he who signed away our hard-won gains in Iraq), is indeed to be resoundingly applauded and has not been applauded enough. And I, like Mr. Smith, found it refreshing that Trump forthrightly appointed an unapologetic constitutionalist to the Supreme Court, unlike previous Republican presidents’ “stealth” appointees such as John Roberts and Sandra Day O’Connor, who were believed to be conservative but turned out to be not so conservative once they reached the court. As for the tax overhaul, we’ll have to wait and see whether it primarily benefits the middle class or the rich.

What then do I disagree with in Smith’s letter? Like too many others, he apparently sees politics in exclusively binary terms, meaning that if Trump scares me, I must be a big Obama fan. Not so. Probably chief among Obama’s failings, errors or misdeeds, for me, was that he demeaned the dignity of the presidency in several ways. (That doesn’t mean that Trump — and this is non-binary — hasn’t demeaned it even more.)

But what most needs correcting in Smith’s letter? It’s that he calls my letter, which totaled 205 words, a “lengthy rant” while his own contains 239. So if anybody is engaging in lengthy ranting, whom might that be?

Haters

Since the vicious attacks on the president’s young son and the attacks on the First Lady for her shoes, have all failed, the desperate haters have lashed out against the president’s doctor. The man is a military officer with more medals than most of the people you see out there. He is a doctor. What medical school did his detractors, who know so much more than he, graduate from?

Donald J. Trump is 11 months older than I am. My cholesterol has an LDL count of 72. My blood pressure is normal, my glucose is middle, my blood work shows absolutely no problems. I am sure the president has better doctors than are available to the general public.

I just wonder what the next fallacious attack will be about. Maybe this: When speaking the president looks at one portion of the audience more than another. They dedicated 50 minutes of a news conference trying not to say they think the doctor is lying, so I imagine they can try to make hay out of how the president stands. Surely that means he is unbalanced, get it, unbalanced? Should be interesting. Come forth with your hate, those that will. Call me something that hasn’t been said.

I’m over it

I didn’t need David Mills’ advice (letters, Jan. 18) to get over Georgia’s loss to Alabama (the Notre Dame of the South, always benefiting from close/no calls). I’ve been getting over it for years. ‘Bama made the plays, Georgia didn’t.

I do think ‘Bama should have been named National co-champions with the officials. And the ‘Bama player who threw punches at his own support staff could have been named MVB (Most Valuable Boxer). If they were to make a sequel to the movie “The Longest Yard” this ‘Bama team could go against the prison guards. Perfect casting. Congratulations to ‘Bama.

UGA fan

It’s true referees will miss calls during a game, such as holding, false starts, but to throw a flag for a penalty that did not exist is inexcusable. That ref should be fired. Just saying.

PC police on patrol

The PC police were out in full force in Thursday’s Opinion Page. Andy Galloway, Steve Bullington, and Warren Johnson should be on the DNC payroll. They seemed upset about Trump’s remarks about Haiti, El Salvador and some African nations.

This wasn’t even about race. It was about changing our immigration system from a welfare entitlement program to a merit-based system. Why should we allow people, regardless of their ethnicity, to come over here and be a drain on our resources.

If these people have such good qualifications and prospects shouldn’t they stay in their own countries and help them become great? Lord knows those countries need them more than we do.

Our economy is now humming along the way it should have been when Obama was president. His burdensome regulatory policy and excessive corporate taxes caused the worst recession recovery in our history. Obama never understood how the economy works. We were told that sub 2 percent economic growth was the new normal. Now were back above 3 percent economic growth thanks to Trump’s policies.

Also, Obama’s foreign policy was a joke. He had no answer for ISIS. Trump unleashed our military and now ISIS is decimated. Obama’s greatest legacy was doubling our national debt in just eight years, with nothing to show for it.

This story was originally published January 21, 2018 at 9:00 PM with the headline "This is Viewpoints for Monday, January 22, 2018."