Commentary
Require coal ash plan transparency in Georgia Power’s rate hike request
Georgia Power wants customers who pay the company for electricity to also pay to clean up its $525 million environmental mess. And that’s about all the company wants to tell Georgians about it. Georgia Power wants its 2.5 million ratepayers to cough up that half a billion over the next three years to seal about […]
Bookman: Ga. Chamber signs on to GOP’s new love of tariffs, free money
When Democrat Jon Ossoff announced this week that he will run against incumbent David Perdue for the U.S. Senate next year, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Georgia Chamber of Commerce were ready to pounce. Citing a poll they commissioned earlier this year in Georgia, the two groups pointed out that Ossoff’s name recognition remains […]
Bookman: Get ready for GOP calls to cut Medicare, other “socialism”
With two seats up for grabs next year, control of the U.S. Senate may be decided right here in Georgia. That condemns us to hearing the word “socialism” hurled at us repeatedly over the next 14 months in Republican campaign speeches and TV ads. In a speech earlier this summer in Washington, U.S. Sen. David […]
Georgia’s low-income college students deserve need-based aid
Georgia lawmakers should open up a new source of money to help college students from low-income families start and finish school. And limited online sports betting might be a better way to do that than today’s state-sponsored lottery and the other gambling options on the table. Some of the old gaming standbys like casinos and […]
Bookman: Isakson an honest man, too much of a legislator for modern D.C.
U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson is an honest man, and he deserves honesty in return. So as he announces his reluctant retirement from public life, I offer honest admiration, an honest hope that he enjoys many years still to come in private life, and an honest and significant degree of disappointment. At 74, with a 40-year […]
Georgia’s poor, rural hospitals lose in lawmakers’ health care waiting game
Georgia lawmakers are again waiting, fingers crossed, for someone to provide an alternative to expanding Medicaid coverage to nearly 500,000 uninsured Georgians under the federal Affordable Care Act. The latest workaround, Georgia’s 2019 Patients First Act, is so much like a Utah plan the White House just rejected that it seems like it’s time to […]
Bookman: Courts forced to clean up Georgia’s elections mess
Back in 2017, when Gov. Brian Kemp was still Georgia’s secretary of state and responsible for running fair elections and protecting our right to vote, he haughtily dismissed criticism that the state’s elections systems were vulnerable to hacking and might bar legal residents from voting. Such questions, he wrote in USA Today, are “baseless and […]
Shine more sunlight on plans to mine near treasured Okefenokee
It’s not surprising that the Charlton County Commission late last week passed a non-binding resolution to endorse a mining company’s plan to dig little more than a couple of miles from the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge. But state and federal officials with oversight responsibility for protecting Georgia’s unique and precious natural areas should be more […]
Bookman: Insane approach to gun laws ripe for change
A black-clad man in full body armor, using an assault weapon equipped with a 100-round magazine, opened fire in a Dayton nightclub district and killed nine people, wounding another 17, in the 30 seconds before being gunned down himself by police. Another shooter, this one in El Paso, walked into a Walmart armed with an […]
A chisel is the right tool for a future-focused leader
You might remember this campaign commercial from last year. A small explosion detonates in a field behind then-gubernatorial candidate Brian Kemp as he declares: “I’m so conservative, I blow up government spending.” Last week Gov. Kemp moved closer to fulfilling that pledge. His Office of Planning and Budget ordered most department heads to cut 4% […]
School achievement measures miss mark on student performance
As Georgia school districts kicked off the new school year this month, educators, parents and stakeholders are rejoicing over the recently-released Milestones scores. A press release from the Georgia Department of Education announced the results with a celebratory tone: “Students record strongest-ever overall gains on Georgia Milestones assessments.” Test improvements are worth celebrating, but unfortunately […]
Bookman: Georgia’s junior senator misplaces his outrage
That’s outrageous,” U.S. Sen. David Perdue said last month, responding to a controversy over tweets in which President Trump attacked four female members of Congress. To Perdue, it wasn’t outrageous that Trump told those four women of color to “go back” to the “crime-infested places from which they came,” as if they didn’t belong here, […]