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Opinion: Legislators can prevent another property-tax meltdown
Dozens of property owners attended a June 15 meeting at which the Fulton Board of Assessors considered whether to uphold the current property assessments. (AJC Photo / Arielle Kass) A burgeoning...
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Opinion: Pensions may not make sense for Georgia’s younger teachers
AJC Photo / Ben Gray Earlier this summer, my AJC colleague James Salzer broke the news that Georgia expects to have to increase its payment into our Teachers Retirement System by as much as $400...
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Opinion: The other numbers crunch for Georgia’s rural hospitals
Sometimes, while working through a complex problem, a simple but inescapable fact pops up. Here’s such a fact about Georgia’s rural health-care crisis: The minimum population needed to sustain a...
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Opinion: Stacey Abrams embraces a nasty brand of Democratic politics
Protesters disrupt a speech by Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Evans during Netroots Nation 2017 in Atlanta on Saturday. (Photo by Kevin D. Liles for The Washington Post) Before Charlottesville...
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Opinion: One big thing holding back Georgia’s economy
A student works with two instructors to in the on-set film production class at Gwinnett Technical College, February 2016. The film industry is one of the sectors seeking more trained workers in...
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Opinion: The perfect day for Georgia to introduce a statue to the world
The new statue of Martin Luther King Jr., sculpted by Martin Dawe, was unveiled Monday in its spot on the Georgia Capitol grounds. (Kyle Wingfield photo) People of faith are fond of observing that the...
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Opinion: September 11 comes to Georgia
Local residents Thomas Lairsey, 71, and his wife Ann, 67, move into the Red Cross shelter at the Albany Civic Center to ride out Hurricane Irma on Sunday, Sept. 10. (AJC Photo / Curtis Compton) Sixteen...
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Opinion: No, natural disasters like Irma aren’t good for the economy
Does this look like good economic policy to you? A car port awning sits on U.S. 17 after being ripped off by Hurricane Irma on Monday in Bowling Green, Fla. (AP Photo / Chris O’Meara) Once the storm...
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Opinion: MARTA chief’s exit needn’t derail state transit funding
AJC Photo / Bob Andres The news last week that MARTA’s chief executive is leaving for another job came at what could be seen as the best of times and the worst of times. The best, because Keith Parker...
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Opinion: Obamacare’s death spiral takes another turn in Georgia
2015 — the good old days for Obamacare, three double-digit premium hikes ago. And you thought last year was bad. That statement could refer to a number of things, but today I’m talking about...
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Opinion: The difficult realities of outlawing partisan gerrymandering
DeKalb County voters go to the polls in Scottdale, May 24, 2016. (AJC Photo / Hyosub Shin) Gerrymandering is ugly business; there’s no getting around that. The question pending at the U.S. Supreme...
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Opinion: How rural Georgia can help ease Atlanta’s traffic woes
AJC file photo / Hyosub Shin WAYCROSS — This gateway to the Okefenokee was, like a certain city once called Terminus, named in relation to the railroads. The “Ways Cross” from six directions here; in...
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Opinion: How Congress could push Georgia’s tax rates lower
Republicans unveiled their long-awaited federal tax-reform bill last week. There’s much work left to do, but it gets the ball rolling on one of the GOP’s last chances to enact a major piece of...
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Opinion: The big takeaways from 2017 elections aren’t good for GOP
Virginia Gov.-elect Ralph Northam, a Democrat, celebrates his election victory Tuesday in Fairfax, Va. (AP Photo / Cliff Owen) We’ll get to the meaning of the local races later, but first let’s do what...
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Opinion: The Georgia GOP’s real problem going into 2018
A special election — actually, three of them — finally went Democrats’ way in Georgia. After the bonfire of the punditries that was their expensive bust in the 6th Congressional District, these...
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Opinion: Who’s afraid of the big, bad ‘establishment’?
We’re now six months away from picking party nominees for Georgia’s statewide offices. Most voters probably aren’t paying much attention to the campaigns yet, but some themes are starting to emerge....
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Opinion: A substantive effort to boost ailing rural Georgia
Health care access in rural communities such as McRae, where Telfair Regional Hospital (above) closed in 2008, is one of the goals of the proposals unveiled by the House Rural Development Council on...
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Opinion: Hurry up and get here, 2018
2017 … amirite? (WSB-TV via AP) 2017 is all but over and, as of this writing, the world has not ended. Given the many dire predictions made this time last year, as Donald Trump was preparing to enter...
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Opinion: Welcome to 2018, which is starting off right
Remember what I said about 2018 needing to be better than 2017? So far, so good. Georgia defender John Atkins celebrates beating Oklahoma 54-48 during double overtime in the College Football Playoff...
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Opinion: How this session starts will tell us much about how it ends
Legislative sessions have a particular rhythm. They start slowly, then pick up the pace as more bills are filed and vetted by committees. There’s a rush to the first deadline, Crossover Day. Then a...
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