This is Viewpoints for Thursday, August 27, 2015

Can’t be bought

How can anyone who has lived in this country for the past eight years think Donald Trump is unqualified to be president? He’s trying. He’s risking his money and he is too old to want more fame. He’s had it all. He is just like all of us. He is fed up with people going to Washington to get rich. Let’s send someone there who can’t be bought, and he is it.

— James Sutton

Macon

Satan is the master

When Satan walked into the Garden of Eden that dreadful day, he not only deceived and mastered God’s first creation, but he became their “master.” The fall of man in Genesis 3 has serious implications and far more ramifications than people fully understand. To begin with, God’s first pair, made in the image of God, were now depraved and subject to death. Their fallen nature would now pass on to generations down to the present.

It is clearly without question that man has a fallen, depraved nature. We see the awful results of sin. The murder of innocent children. The mass murders of people inflamed by hate or overpowered with drugs. The slaughter of entire families and even nations.

Some say, I don’t sin or need God. Yet just because you haven’t been exposed, or fallen into deep sin, doesn’t excuse you of your innate potential, if brought to a certain limit, trial or despair. But, not only are we fallen, we are under the “mastery” of Satan. Satan mastered Eve and become her master and the master of Adam’s entire race. To be under the mastery of Satan is the same as being owned by him. And, sadly, Satan will claim his “own” at the end of life. But thank God, there is hope through the atonement made by Jesus Christ on the cross. But, we must repent, turn from our sins and believe the gospel. “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” (1 John 1:9)

— Dwight Poole

Hawkinsville

Trump not amusing

I’m glad opinion contributor J.C. Smith is so thoroughly amused at Trump’s effect on conservatives. As a conservative voter all my adult life, I am appalled that a bilious, bombastic blowhard spouting bile and spewing bilge is atop the polls. Megyn Kelly’s “obvious personal attack” moderating the debate was nothing more than hard hitting questioning and Trump needs to develop a thicker skin. As the old saying goes “If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.” If a person runs for the highest office in our land, they’d better come in with a full set of armor, because the attacks will come quick and they will come hard.

Trump is famously thin-skinned and really doesn’t need to be running if he cannot answer hard questions. He has yet to fully answer issues and goals questions. When asked questions of substance he deflects them and does not give a substantive answer. His greatest talent is personal attacks, calling anyone who dares criticize or question him “losers” and worse.

Yes, Trump, as any of us, has First Amendment rights to free speech. But it was Erick Erickson’s right to choose not to allow the Red State conference to degenerate into a complete and utter circus, which it would have had Trump been present on the dais. Many celebrate Trump’s total lack of political correctness. I call it something else. A total inability to speak with tact and decorum. A great statesman once defined tact as “the ability to light a fire under a person, without making their blood boil.” Trump and his loud mouth make my blood boil. To be president you have to have tact and diplomacy. A real leader will have those qualities.

He touts “His proven record as a business leader.” Does that include his multiple bankruptcies? Trump blusters he’ll not only get a fence along the entire southern border, he’ll get Mexico to pay for it. If he’s elected, I want to see how he’ll pull that off. He doesn’t mention we have a more serious problem with our more extensive northern border over which come illegals of many different ethnicities who may be terrorists. People who may be blonde-haired and blue-eyed or any features that will blend right in with the general population.

I have not always agreed with Sen. John McCain, but when Trump said what he did about McCain’s status as a war hero, I turned off listening to the man then and there. I’m the wife, daughter, sister, great-niece and cousin of veterans of this country’s proud service. I wouldn’t vote for Trump for dog catcher. My apologies to dog catchers. I would sooner write in Daffy Duck for president.

— Sherry G. Lazzaro

Warner Robins

More taxes coming?

I have some observations to Erick Erickson’s “Georgia Republicans in denial” column from the Aug. 14 opinion page. First, his supposition is right-on: Our legislators and governor did strong-arm the “Transportation Funding Act of 2015” (House Bill 170) into law. This taxing bill was injudiciously presented and forced (in my opinion) through the various committees of our states legislative process.

With this in mind, I do not think the economic impact of this bill, taking many dollars away from Georgians, was considered or studied. In just this one bill, our legislators concocted multiple tax collection means and, as a collective, every one of these taxes could stifle or disrupt our economic growth.

Perhaps we should have gotten a trade-off with the long awaited reform of the Georgia state income tax rates. Yes, our legislators have considered (half-heartedly?) measures to eliminate the entire income tax but have not come close. Folks, a reduction to a 4 percent income tax rate, from the top rate of 6 percent (which is what most middle-class Georgians pay now), would go a long way to transport this state out of the economic malaise that we are still experiencing.

Now, let’s go back to May 2007, when then Speaker of the House Glenn Richardson proposed legislation to completely replace the old tax codes. He said Georgia residents pay an income tax, SPLOSTs, state and local property tax, estate tax, unemployment insurance and worker’s compensation taxes, business and occupational fees, intangible taxes and insurance taxes. He went on to say, “We must change the burdensome and antiquated tax system we currently have.” Guess what — for the most part these roadblocks of tax schemes are still in place — all hinder our economic growth and well-being. Dang, Georgia even has claim to the fourth-highest beer tax among states. Cheers.

However, citizens, the news for Bibb County and our tax policies is getting wacky, too. If you are a person who is Taxed Enough Already (TEA), as I am, very soon it will get unrelenting with officials asking voters to approve a higher sales tax. I listened to an official of our county government present a briefing on the re-awaking of the Regional Transportation Sales Tax. If you recall our region voted against that in 2012. Yet, our politicians want to revive it, so we pay an 8 percent sales tax. Moreover, it gets worse: even if we vote down the regional tax, again, our county has in the starting gate the (Bibb) County Transportation Sales Tax proposal. That one would raise the sales tax to 8 percent anyway.

I asked the briefing official if “any economists calculated what an 8 percent sales tax would do to stifle our economic growth in the region.” None have been consulted. Therefore, hold onto your wallets; there is no relief in taxes either statewide or countywide, and we all will continue with tax fatigue ad infinitum.

So, Erickson may have a premise that he did not realize in said column. That is, state Republicans are going to continue having a hard time getting elected due to their fiscal policies that keep taxes heading north. (Of course, Frank Gadbois would be pleased.)

Wake up, Mr. Republican Legislature under the Gold Dome, before this state goes purple. County officials, you listening? Solution: lower all taxes, requiring our governments to get leaner and forcing them to purge non-core items in the budgets. This way the private sector keeps their money and grows our economy statewide. Just think what a spaceship private entrepreneurship with more capital could build.

— Bobby Komlo

Lake Wildwood (not Macon)

This story was originally published August 27, 2015 at 12:00 AM with the headline "This is Viewpoints for Thursday, August 27, 2015 ."