SWGA Politics

Over the last few days, a fairly large group of people all across the State – including here in the Lee/Dougherty area – have gotten very upset over various proposed cuts in education, specifically over 4H.

The first point I want to make here is that this is political gamesmanship and nothing more. The General Assembly ordered cuts, and the Board of Regents responded with cutting programs that they knew would attract this mass public outcry in order to try to pressure the General Assembly to not force them to make these cuts. Apparently, at least some in the General Assembly are already caving.

Even before then, however, you had several lawmakers – including State Rep Austin Scott (R-Tifton, running for Governor) get pissed that the Board of Regents would consider eliminating the very popular 4H program completely as one concrete example of the gamesmanship described above. Scott took the bait hook, line, and sinker. He told the Tifton Gazette “We asked them to bring us their proposed potential budget cuts and instead, they say they want to raise tuition and eliminate 4-H.” Scott has been in the General Assembly for more than a decade, approaching a decade and a half. He has been a Chairman of a couple of different committees. He wants to be Governor. He should know better than to engage in this petty gamesmanship, and he should rise above it.

But those are side issues to me – political noise that doesn’t amount to anything substantive, and indeed hides the substantive issues that need to be discussed.
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