The “Bigger Problems” of Georgia’s Governor Nathan Deal

The Governor of my home state of Georgia, Nathan Deal, has been soundly, and frequently, taken to task for his recent “Craven Capitulation” on religious liberty. I don’t wish to rehash the merits of the very weak bill Deal rejected (it only protected churches, religious schools, and “integrated auxiliaries”), nor do I wish to highlight again the rampant ignorance and hypocrisy of those who lobbied Deal to veto religious liberty in Georgia. What I would like to do here is give some explanation as to why I believe Deal caved on the defining moral issue of his governorship.

Chelsen Vicari at The Institute of Religion and Democracy hinted at the problem when she wrote of Governor Deal’s veto, “When corporate bullies dangling dollar bills is enough to cause a Baptist governor to veto a bill protecting freedom of conscience and speech, a bigger problem exits.”

Vicari goes on to conclude, “Gov. Nathan Deal’s veto of Georgia’s religious freedom bill represents a wider movement among America’s Christians to compromise Scripture and morality for the sake of votes and popularity. Unfortunately, many Evangelicals, Mainline Protestants, and Catholics are bowing down at altars of sexual liberation and political correctness, erected by cultural Leftists.”

The “wider movement” Vacari references is especially prevalent in the Catholic Church and Mainline Protestantism. This eagerness to compromise Scripture and morality is due to the widespread embrace of what Russell Moore, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, calls “near Christianity.” It seems that Mr. Deal has been steeped in such wishy-washy theology for decades.

A day after Deal’s veto, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary President Albert Mohler described in a podcast Deal’s rationale for vetoing the religious liberty bill as a “moral and political evasion.” Dr. Mohler also pointed out that Deal is acting as an agent in the liberal “theological agenda” that is helping to progress the homosexual agenda.

Given the theology of Governor Deal’s church, this should come as little surprise. As Dr. Mohler also noted, Governor Deal is a member of The First Baptist Church of Gainesville, Georgia. Since the early 1990s, First Baptist of Gainesville has been affiliated with the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship (CBF), a more liberal association of Baptist churches than is the Southern Baptist Convention.

On homosexuality, CBF declares, “CBF does not issue ‘official’ positions on homosexuality or other social issues because it violates the Fellowship’s mission as a network of individuals and churches. CBF values and respects the autonomy of each individual and local church to evaluate and make their own decision regarding social issues like homosexuality.” In other words, CBF chooses to ignore Scripture and remain silent on one of the most pressing moral (not merely “social”) issues of our time.

After the infamous Obergefell ruling last year in which the U.S. Supreme Court abandoned the eternal truth on marriage, the pastor of First Baptist of Gainesville, Bill Coates wrote,

“People of deep faith and convictions exist on both sides of the LGBT and gay marriage question. Ultimately, it comes down to how an individual interprets Scripture and how churches interpret Scripture. If read with strict literalism, one can always point to passages that appear to condemn many kinds of behavior…Reading the Bible literally can lead us to the embracing of attitudes that in fact move us from Christlikeness.”

Of course, when the Bible speaks literally, as it does on homosexuality, we are to take it literally. Dr. Coates, who has pastored First Baptist for the last 18 years, went on to write,

“Each church will have to decide how to walk through this marriage equality debate. I think we should respect those who choose to allow their ministers not to perform same-sex weddings out of their own deep convictions, and I think we should respect churches that choose to allow their ministers that right, for they make their choice out of deep convictions, too…I say this: I do not always know what the truth is, but I can always tell what love is. I believe love is the greatest of all, and to do the loving thing will always be the right thing. Most congregations will eventually find their way there.”

Dr. Mohler concluded that Coates could only have meant “that most congregations will eventually get to an affirmation of same-sex marriage in one way or another.”

Jim Galloway, a long-time political reporter for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (AJC), recently reported on the “Baptist-on-Baptist fight” that resulted from Georgia’s religious liberty debate. Galloway asked Dr. Coates “whether the governor’s veto reflected the values of the First Baptist Church of Gainesville.”

Coates replied, “My perception is that the great majority of our congregants are very supportive of Governor Deal’s veto of this bill — primarily for two reasons. First, we hold to the strong historical Baptist principle of separation of church and state.”

I suppose the only thing surprising here is that it took Dr. Coates this long to play the “separation of church and state” card. How tragically ironic that the pastor of a Baptist church in Georgia would resort to using eight words of Thomas Jefferson’s letter to the Danbury Baptists in 1801 in order to justify denying his fellow pastors protection of their religious liberties.

Jefferson’s letter to the Danbury Baptists was a reply to a letter the Baptists wrote on October 7, 1801 congratulating him on his election as U.S. President. Along with their congratulations, the Danbury Baptists expressed grave concern over the First Amendment’s guarantee of the “free exercise of religion.” These Baptists felt that inclusion of such in the U.S. Constitution implied that the right of religious freedom was government-given and not God-given.

Hence, they wrote, “Our sentiments are uniformly on the side of religious liberty: that religion is at all times and places a matter between God and individuals, that no man ought to suffer in name, person, or effects on account of his religious opinions, [and] that the legitimate power of civil government extends no further than to punish the man who works ill to his neighbor. But sir, our constitution of government is not specific… [T]herefore what religious privileges we enjoy (as a minor part of the State) we enjoy as favors granted, and not as inalienable rights.” (Emphasis mine.)

Oh the irony of ironies! The Danbury Baptists, it turns out, wrote Jefferson in the name of “religious liberty!” Does it sound as if these Baptists would support the government forcing individual Christians, or Christian-owned businesses, or Christian-led institutions to accommodate the homosexual agenda?

And neither would Thomas Jefferson. Each of the original 13 colonies treated homosexuality as a serious criminal offense. Jefferson himself authored such a law for the state of Virginia, prescribing that the punishment for sodomy was to be castration. Why have modern courts ignored this?

Further demonstrating his lack of knowledge of the truth, three years ago, the Bill Coates-led First Baptist of Gainesville, along with three other liberal-leaning denominations in Gainesville, GA sponsored the appearance of the (late) infamous heretic Marcus Borg at a two-day lecture series on the campus of a Gainesville university. Borg was a fellow of the Jesus Seminar and a major figure in the heretical “historical Jesus” movement.

According to apologist Greg Koukl, the so-called “scholars” of the Jesus Seminar “have rejected as myth the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, the virgin birth, all Gospel miracles, and a full 82% of the teachings normally attributed to Jesus—all dismissed as legendary accretions with no historical foundation. For example, only two words of the Lord’s Prayer survive as authentic: ‘Our Father.’” In other words, they are “Christians” who reject virtually every tenet of Christianity, and Nathan Deal’s pastor saw fit to promote such false teaching.

At the time, in the local paper, Dr. Coates flatteringly described Borg as someone who “speaks of an emerging paradigm to see faith and practice faith in an age of science and technology.” Coates added that, “So many people don’t believe today because they don’t believe the basic doctrines or have trouble understanding the stories of the Bible. For people like that, Borg has a new approach, a new lens through which they can see those stories.” Borg’s “new lens” gives new meaning to the Apostle Paul’s “dim mirror.”

Perhaps the most troubling news concerning Governor Deal’s church—where he has served as both a deacon and a Sunday school teacher—was revealed recently in a 2,800-word exposé by the AJC. The First Baptist Church of Gainesville, GA, along with a former pastor (who served just prior to Dr. Coates), are being sued for their supposed role in hiding the sexual abuse committed by a former deacon, Fleming Weaver. While a Scout Leader for a Boy Scout troop sponsored by First Baptist of Gainesville, Weaver sexually abused multiple young boys.

In 1981, when some of his victims brought information to First Baptist, Weaver admitted to church leadership that he had indeed sexually abused several young boys. Reportedly, the church chose not to reveal Weaver's abuse to the Boy Scouts or to law enforcement and allowed Weaver to remain in church leadership. The alleged victim bringing the lawsuit accuses Weaver of raping him in 1985, when the boy was 15. According to the AJC, Dr. Coates “acknowledged he had heard the rumors about Weaver, ‘but there was never any kind of proof.’” Weaver, now 82-years-old, remained a deacon at First Baptist until just a few weeks ago when this story hit the news.

It should come as little surprise that a church that would allow an abuser of children to avoid the law and remain in leadership, that would sponsor the speeches of a heretic, that shrugged its shoulders at the legal redefinition of the oldest institution in the history of humanity, and that cites Jefferson’s wall in order to justify not protecting the religious liberties of pastors, would also give us a Governor who would “compromise Scripture and morality for the sake of votes and popularity.”

Sadly, as is so often the case with those who are steeped in “near Christianity,” as another Baptist pastor in Gainesville, Dr. Tom Smiley, put it, with his veto of religious liberty, Governor Deal “missed his moment.” (In other words, he missed his “Esther moment.”) However, if the Georgia legislature has its way—like Peter, Jonah, Samson, King David, and other trophies of God’s grace and mercy—Governor Deal may get another shot at doing what is right.

(See this column at American Thinker.)

Copyright 2016, Trevor Grant Thomas
At the Intersection of Politics, Science, Faith, and Reason.
www.trevorgrantthomas.com
Trevor and his wife Michelle are the authors of: Debt Free Living in a Debt Filled World
tthomas@trevorgrantthomas.com

Supernaturally Biased

The two-day event featuring “progressive Christian” Marcus Borg at Brenau University at the end of this week is entitled “Religion in the 21^st Century.” Bill Coates, senior pastor of First Baptist Church Gainesville (one of the event sponsors), says that Borg “speaks of an emerging paradigm to see faith and practice faith in an age of science and technology.”

Of course, the implication here is that in our “modern” age of science and technology, we need a new approach to understand our faith. We need a new way to understand Christianity without having to believe in things like virgin births, water turning to wine, the instant healing of the blind and leprous, the raising of the dead, and so on. Because, of course, science tells us that these things are not possible.

In other words, if it can’t be explained in the natural, then it must not be true. Sadly this is the view of many (so-called) Christians. This is certainly true of the “Jesus Seminar” of which Dr. Borg has been affiliated for decades. As I noted in my last post, the Jesus Seminar is a group of self-described scholars who attempt to discover the “historical Jesus.” According to apologist Greg Koukl, “they have rejected as myth the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, the virgin birth, all Gospel miracles, and a full 82% of the teachings normally attributed to Jesus--all dismissed as legendary accretions with no historical foundation.”

As J.P. Moreland put it in 1995, the Jesus Seminar operates from an “unfalsifiable presupposition” that is rooted in naturalism. Thus, he notes, any event in the Bible that is deemed supernatural is automatically dismissed as unhistorical.

Though the Brenau event implies that we are experiencing something new in terms of science and religion (or, more precisely, Christianity), a bias against the supernatural is almost as old as the devil himself. Writing on “Religion and Science” in 1945, C.S. Lewis demonstrates the absurdity of attempting to disprove the supernatural through mere natural means.

“Science studies nature,” notes Lewis. “And the question is whether anything besides Nature exists—anything ‘outside.’ How could you find that out by studying simply Nature?” Of course the answer is, you can’t. “By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.”

Certainly ours is not a blind and ignorant faith. Though we can’t prove or disprove the supernatural through natural means, this does not mean that there is no evidence for what we believe. As the Apostle Paul noted as he stood before King Agrippa, “What I am saying is true and reasonable.” For the things upon which our faith rests were not “done in a corner.” We know in whom we believe. The evidence is within Scripture as well as outside of it.

Noted Jewish archaeologist Nelson Glueck wrote: “It may be stated categorically that no archaeological discovery has ever controverted (his word) a biblical reference.” He asserts that the “incredibly accurate historical memory of the Bible…is fortified by archaeological fact.”

The great archaeologist William F. Albright states that “There can be no doubt that archaeology has confirmed the substantial historicity of the Old Testament tradition.” Millar Burrows of Yale, a leading authority on the Dead Sea Scrolls, observes that “Archaeology has in many cases refuted the views of modern critics. It has shown in a number of instances that these views rest on false assumptions…” He explains such unbelief: “The excessive skepticism of many liberal theologians stems not from a careful evaluation of the available data, but from an enormous predisposition against the supernatural.”

Copyright 2013, Trevor Grant Thomas

At the Intersection of Politics, Science, Faith, and Reason

Trevor and his wife Michelle are the authors of: Debt Free Living in a Debt Filled World

tthomas@trevorgrantthomas.com

Scratching Those "Itching Ears"

It appears that many in Gainesville and Hall County have decided that they need their “itching ears” scratched. Appearing and speaking on the campus of Brenau University on March 1 and 2 (next Friday and Saturday) is Marcus Borg. According to the Gainesville Times, Borg is “one of the most widely known and influential voices in progressive Christianity and a major figure in scholarship related to the historical Jesus.”

In other words, Borg is a heretic. His “scholarship related to the historical Jesus” describes his participation in the Jesus Seminar. The Jesus Seminar is a group of self-described scholars who attempt to discover the “historical Jesus.” According to apologist Greg Koukl, “they have rejected as myth the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, the virgin birth, all Gospel miracles, and a full 82% of the teachings normally attributed to Jesus--all dismissed as legendary accretions with no historical foundation. For example, only two words of the Lord's Prayer survive as authentic: ‘Our Father.’”

Consider some of the words of Borg himself (emphases mine): “I let go of the notion that the Bible is a divine product. I learned that it is a human cultural product . . . As such, it contained their understandings and affirmations, not statements coming directly or somewhat directly from God.”

"Seminary also introduced me to the historical study of Jesus and Christian origins. I learned from my professors and the readings they assigned that Jesus almost certainly was not born of a virgin, did not think of himself as the Son of God, and did not see his purpose as dying for the sins of the world.”

“As such, myths can be both true and powerful, even though they are symbolic narratives and not straightforward historical reports. Though not literally true, they can be really true; though not factually true, they can be actually true. The stories of Jesus' birth are myths in this sense. Along with most mainline scholars, I do not think these stories report what happened. The virginal conception, the star, the wise men, the birth in Bethlehem where there was no room in the inn, and so forth are not facts of history. But I think these stories are powerfully true...The stories of Jesus' death and resurrection contain a mixture of historical memory and mythical narration.”

“Religious pluralism is a fact of life in North America, and in the world. To absolutize one's own religion as the only way means that one sees all of the other religious traditions of the world as wrong, and dialogue, genuine dialogue, becomes impossible. Conversion can be the only goal.

“I affirm, along with many others, that the major enduring religions of the world are all valid and legitimate. I see them as the responses to the experience of God in the various cultures in which each originated. To be Christian means to find the decisive revelation of God in Jesus. To be Muslim means to find the decisive revelation of God in the Koran. To be Jewish means to find the decisive revelation of God in the Torah, and so forth. I don't think that one of these is better than the other. You could even say they are all divinely given paths to the sacred. To be Christian in this kind of context means to be deeply committed to one's own tradition, even as one recognizes the validity of other traditions.”

When debating William Lane Craig (see here), on the Resurrection of Jesus, Borg declares “…for me, whether or not the tomb was empty doesn’t matter. Whether something happened to the corpse of Jesus doesn’t matter. For as I understand things, Easter is not primarily about something spectacular happening to Jesus on a particular day in the past, it is about the continuing experience of Jesus after his death. This, in my judgment, is the historical ground of Easter.” 

Borg believes that the accounts (or “stories”) of the Resurrection in the Gospels are “metaphorical narratives.” He speaks and writes of a “pre-Easter Jesus” and a “post-Easter Jesus.” The “pre-Easter Jesus” was merely a human who lived and died. The “post-Easter Jesus” lives on (though not in any literal sense) in “the experience and tradition of the church.” According to Dr. Craig, “What Dr. Borg means by the ‘post-Easter Jesus’ is what Jesus became in the thinking and imagination of the Christian church.”

In other words, in Dr. Borg’s thinking, Jesus only exists as a symbolic figure. To use Dr. Craig’s analogy (see his retorts here and here), the relationship between Dr. Borg’s “pre-Easter Jesus” and “post-Easter Jesus” is much like that between the fourth-century bishop Saint Nicholas and Santa Claus. Though not real, the fictional character that is today’s Santa Claus embodies much that is good: giving, kindness, family, love, etc. and is based on a real historical figure. Thus, Santa Claus is worth celebrating. For Borg, Jesus is little different.

The Times reports that Dr. Borg's two-day appearance is presented by “the university [Brenau], First Baptist Church of Gainesville, Grace Episcopal Church, First Presbyterian Church of Gainesville, St. Paul United Methodist Church and EMW Lectures.”

The Times also reports Bill Coates, senior pastor of First Baptist Church, describing Borg as someone who “speaks of an emerging paradigm to see faith and practice faith in an age of science and technology.”  Coates adds that, “So many people don’t believe today because they don’t believe the basic doctrines or have trouble understanding the stories of the Bible. For people like that, Borg has a new approach, a new lens through which they can see those stories.”

DON'T BELIEVE THE BASIC DOCTRINES?! Have ANY of these so-called "PASTORS" actually heard or read of what Borg teaches?! BORG HIMSELF rejects the “basic doctrines!” What is it exactly that makes Dr. Borg a Christian?! People don’t believe because of the heresy spread by men like Borg! What a sad indictment on the local Christian community that Marcus Borg would be put forth as a teacher of Christianity.

Copyright 2013, Trevor Grant Thomas

At the Intersection of Politics, Science, Faith, and Reason

Trevor and his wife Michelle are the authors of: Debt Free Living in a Debt Filled World

tthomas@trevorgrantthomas.com

The TEA (party) was “Sweet”

“The sum of good government,” said Thomas Jefferson in his first inaugural address, is “A wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned (emphasis mine).” The hundreds of thousands of Americans who took part in the TEA (Taxed Enough Already) parties across the U.S. on Wednesday could not agree more.

“Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one,” said Thomas Paine. Those of us participating in the April 15 TEA parties fast see our government becoming “intolerable.” The current levels of government spending and taxation, and the ever present threat by the Obama administration (along with many state and local governments) for even more spending and taxation, have more and more Americans saying, “Enough!”

As I wrote at the beginning of February (here), arguing against continuing the Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax, over-spending by our government almost always results in more-and-more government, which then requires even more spending; this requires more tax revenue, which means more and larger taxes. It is truly a maddening and seemingly endless cycle. This financial absurdity is the major reason why there were approximately 1,000 TEA parties across America on tax day.

Sadly, many Americans these last few years have had to learn the hard financial lessons that resulted from excessive levels of personal indebtedness. The spending sprees that have gone on at every level of government these last several years are, for the most part, simply a reflection of our culture in general. I hope that most Americans—individuals, families, businesses, and government— are now waking up to the fact that we cannot spend our way out of debt and into prosperity. The TEA parties were a good indication that many Americans are indeed getting this message.

Jeff Jones, organizer of the Gainesville TEA party, in his speech at the protest, declared, “We have come here today to make our voices heard in defense of our Liberty.

To declare our love for the United States of America and our love for the freedom that our limited government once afforded each of us.... and we have come here today to tell a bloated, heavy-handed, socialist government that we have had ENOUGH.”

He continued, “This government pats us on the head and whispers in our ears, ‘we will be your Big Brother, and protect you from the unfairness in the world. We'll provide your house, your retirement, your car, your healthcare, and your job....in return for your allegiance to our socialist system.’ An American Socialist named Norman Thomas once said: ‘The American people will never knowingly adopt Socialism. But under the name of “liberalism” they will adopt every fragment of the Socialist program, until one day America will be a Socialist nation, without knowing how it happened.’”

Americans literally cannot afford to sit back and do and say nothing while the financial follies continue in Washington, and in state and local governments all over the country. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis called states “the laboratories of democracy.” In other words, if you want a picture of what is going to happen with the federal government, then take a look at the states. Given the make-up of the current administration, with liberals in almost complete control, the best state at which to take a gander would be California.

In June 2002, the liberal magazine American Prospect hailed California as a “laboratory” for Democratic Policies. The author of the story, Harold Meyerson, boasted that “with its Democratic governor, U.S. senators, state legislature and congressional delegation, California is the only one of the nation’s 10 largest states that is uniformly under Democratic control.” In California, Meyerson said, “the next New Deal is in tryouts.”

In the few years since Meyerson’s bold declaration, California has 11.2% unemployment, a $41 billion deficit, and a credit rating that was slashed to the lowest of all 50 U.S. states (approaching junk bond status). It turns out that their “New Deal” was no deal at all. This, and worse, I’m afraid, is the destination of the U.S. government if we don’t stop the fiscal insanity. Hopefully the TEA parties were the beginning of the “change” this country really needs.

Copyright 2009, Trevor Grant Thomas

At the Intersection of Politics, Science, Faith, and Reason

Trevor and his wife Michelle are the authors of: Debt Free Living in a Debt Filled World

tthomas@trevorgrantthomas.com

Too Many Taxes

The great philosopher David Hume said, “It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once.” It is generally lost about 1% at a time—usually through taxes. One of the surest ways to take away the liberties of a free people is to over-tax them. The great English jurist and professor, Sir William Blackstone, upon whom our Founding Fathers relied greatly when setting up our system of government, said “A power over a man's resources is a power over his will.”

On March 17 of this year, Hall County voters will again go to the polls to vote on a 1% SPLOST (Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax). (Why wasn’t this vote held last November, saving taxpayers thousands of dollars?) The current SPLOST, if approved, would be the sixth SPLOST approved by Hall County voters since its inception in 1985.

Let me say right now that I believe that sales taxes are a far superior form of taxation than either income taxes or property taxes. Alan Keyes was right on when in 2002 he wrote that, “Real [tax] reform requires abolishing the income tax and returning to the system our Founders intended, funding the federal government with tariffs, duties, and excise taxes – sales taxes – not with the privacy-destroying income tax.”

However, even sales taxes can overreach and be misused, especially when we still have burdensome income and property taxes, and especially if they are used for “projects” that will require more taxation. My friend, Marine Major Kevin Jarrard, in his letter to the Times (here), recently pointed out the aquatics center as such a project.

Of course, government over-spending almost always results in more-and-more government, which then requires even more spending; this requires more tax revenue, which means more and larger taxes. It is truly a maddening and seemingly endless cycle.

Consider, if you will, all of the taxes paid by most Americans: income (state and federal), Social Security, Medicare, sales (state and local), capital gains, ad valorem (home and vehicle), inheritance, gasoline, unemployment, and so on. In 2007, MSN reported that, “In a study for the National Bureau of Economic Research, Boston University economists Laurence J. Kotlikoff and David Rapson found that our all-in marginal tax rate is 40%, give or take a bit. Yes, you read that right: 40%. Most workers will pay about that much on each dollar of income when all taxes -- federal and state income taxes, sales taxes, taxes for benefit programs, etc. -- are considered.”

Most of us are familiar with the Tax Foundation’s (a tax research organization) phrase “Tax Freedom Day,” which is the date to which the average American must work to pay all their taxes. For 2008 the date was April 21. That works out to be 30.3% of the calendar year. As I implied above, many of these taxes are in relatively small amounts (such as 1% sales taxes), but as you can see they all add up to a very significant total.

Governor Sonny Perdue recently announced budget proposals that failed to include the homestead exemption. That means an additional $200 to $400 in taxes for most Georgia homeowners. Needless to say, many are outraged. In reference to a caller’s concern about the removal of the homestead exemption, a local talk-show host correctly noted, “You cannot raise taxes in this environment.” The Chairman of the Hall County Commission recently called the governor’s actions on the homestead exemption “totally irresponsible.”

The 1% SPLOST also amounts to several hundred tax dollars a year for the average taxpayer, yet there is barely a hesitation on the part of most local voters, politicians, and pundits to continuously support and approve any and every SPLOST that comes along.

If conservatives are going to rail against wasteful government spending at the state and federal level, as well they should, we also need to hold our local officials accountable when it comes to spending. In his visit to Gainesville last year, Governor Perdue correctly declared that local governments were too big. “They blame and say we’re going to pass them (tax losses) right on to our citizens, and you’re causing their tax increase,” he said. “I’ve got the facts to prove the state didn’t cause their tax increase. Those are decisions made at the local level.”

As of October 2008, SPLOST VI contains 46 items (Curiously, as of this writing, the itemized list can’t be found on the Hall County SPLOST Web site.) at a cost of about $240 million. The current economic circumstances beg the questions: Are they projects that taxpayers should be funding; if so, is now the time; and would we be better off leaving the $240 million in the local economy?

As Major Jarrard also pointed out, we need to make sure that we are “funding practical, efficient, and necessary government facilities.” I agree. If governments are given more in taxes they are going to find a reason to spend it. We need to begin to wean our governments—local, state, and federal—from the current level of revenue that is required of the average American. That is why I’m voting against SPLOST VI.

Copyright 2009, Trevor Grant Thomas

At the Intersection of Politics, Science, Faith, and Reason.
Trevor and his wife Michelle are the authors of: Debt Free Living in a Debt Filled World
tthomas@trevorgrantthomas.com