This morning, State Rep Ben Harbin, the House Appropriations Committee Chairman, commented that Karen Handel – nor anyone in the Secretary of State’s Office – had taken furlough days as ordered by the Governor and the General Assembly.
Handel’s handlers and other assorted defenders fired back that she had cut 20% of her budget, so she didn’t have to abide by the furlough order.
When you think about this though, neither option makes her look good.
On the one hand, she was unsympathetic to the plights of virtually every other State employee – including the Governor and members of the General Assembly – who took the furlough days as ordered, even when many of their departments were making cuts as steep or steeper than the Secretary of State’s Office.
On the other hand, apparently her office was already so bloated that she could afford to make a 20% cut – and since she is the one ultimately responsible for her office’s budget requests, she was the one that condoned this bloating before it became politically expedient for her to make the cuts.
I know this is a short post (to which some will be grateful and others disappointed, you’re welcome and I apologize), but really this whole situation comes down to a single determination:
Was Karen Handel a cold-hearted lady who is completely unsympathetic to the plight of nearly every single employee of the State of Georgia and their families, or did she promote an ever expanding government that she only cut when it became politically expedient?
In either case, she has proven yet again that she is not fit to lead the people of this State, and this is over and beyond the fact that she actively ignores laws in order to disenfranchise legal citizens.
