Where’s Sonny? Or Johnny? Or Saxby? Or Nathan? Or Casey? Or Bill?
Metro Dalton, which includes Whitfield and Murray counties, set a dubious standard in 2008 with the second largest growth in the unemployment rate in the nation, trailing only Indiana’s Elkhart-Goshen area. Earlier this month, President Barack Obama visited that economically devastated area to assuage the fears of the residents there, yet few state officials can find the time for Dalton.
Few places in the nation, and perhaps none in the state, have felt the sting of the current economic downturn more than Dalton. The unemployment rate in Metro Dalton soared to 11.2 percent in December 2008, up from 5 percent in December 2007. That was well above the 7.2 percent national unemployment rate.
But have any of the above elected officials shown up to tell us what they plan to do about it? Have they even come here to offer words of encouragement? No. It has been months, in some cases years, since the governor, our U.S. senators, congressman, lieutenant governor and speaker of the state House of Representatives have graced us with their presence.
They seem to take the area for granted during good times and ignore it in bad.
There are few communities this size in the state that have the industrial base Dalton does, that create the jobs that Dalton does or that pay the taxes that Dalton does. You’d think state officials would be lining up to tell us what they are going to do to help. But if you are not a big landowner in south Georgia or part of the Atlanta boys club the message seems to be “You are on your own.”
Our local leaders, and voters, have taken steps to keep the area business friendly. The city of Dalton has cut its property tax rate 20 percent. Voters approved “freeport” tax exemptions for several types of business inventory in both Dalton and Whitfield County last year. Dalton voters approved Sunday sales of alcoholic beverages in 2006, and Whitfield County voters approved the sale of distilled spirits by the drink last year.
And let’s not forget the Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax (SPLOST) that Whitfield County voters approved to fund transportation projects in 2007. State transportation officials were glad to come here and promise hefty matching funds if voters approved that measure. But soon after it passed, they suddenly discovered the state transportation department had a huge budget deficit and the county wouldn’t be getting that money after all.
What’s particularly galling about all this is that almost all of the top elected officials in Georgia are Republican. Whitfield County is one of the most reliably Republican counties in the state, and it was one of the first to switch to the GOP. And still they don’t seem to care. Or maybe that’s why they don’t care. If they believe the voters will stand by them no matter what, they may feel no need to offer the area anything more than crumbs.
Post a Comment
