The fifth one is a bit like

the fourth one, except that our legislators want to give a benefit for

state highway employees killed or disabled in the line of duty and don't

propose a special auto tag. What's insurance for if it's not to provide

death and disability benefits? If current benefits are not high enough,

the legislature can raise them, but they sure don't need a constitutional

amendment for that. Another No.

With the sixth amendment, we

sink deeper and deeper into esoterica (weird stuff). The legislature wants

our permission to classify marine vessels into different categories so

they can provide lower rates for their friends and higher rates for the

others. They don't word it that way, but that's the gist of it. Vote No

unless you operate a shrimp boat and have friends in the legislature.

(You can make friends there through political contributions.)

The seventh amendment seeks

your permission to require seven years of experience rather than five

for state court judges. This is nonsense. The quality of the experience

matters a whole lot more than the length of time. There is no problem

here, and nothing needs fixing. We don't have very many baby-faced judges

in Georgia: most wear bifocals. Vote No with a clear conscience.

But that's not all. We also

have four referendum questions. These are laws which the legislature had

misgivings about, where it decided to pass the buck to the people. You'll

observe that the legislature generally makes all the important laws itself,

and saves the small stuff for us, the voters. Read what follows and see

what I mean.

Referendum question A asks

us to approve property tax exemptions for farming equipment owned by families.

Guess what will happen if this passes? All the farm equipment now owned

is harebrained. Vote No.

Referendum question B asks

us to increase the property tax exemption for the tools of manual laborers

from $300 to $2500. What exactly is a manual laborer, and how many manual

laborers do you know who file tax returns for their tools? Another easy

No.

Referendum question C is long

and tortuous. Basically, it tells us that disabled veterans and their

widows get a $43,000 property tax homestead exemption, and it seeks to

grant the same benefit to widows of soldiers killed in combat. Very few

people would benefit from this. A rich widow might benefit more than a

poor one, and a widow with a rented home or in a nursing home would get

nothing. People who are fed up with all our weird and complicated tax

laws should be reluctant to approve things like this. Give the widow an

adequate pension and let her pay her taxes like everybody else. I'd vote

No.

Referendum question D asks

whether Elks Lodges ought to be exempt from property taxes. I don't know

anything about Elks Lodges. All charitable institutions ought to be treated

the same. An easy No.

In case you've kept score,

I'd vote No on every one of these 11 questions. If you want to do the

same as I do, that ought to be easy for you to remember. If you make it

a point of always doing the opposite of what I suggest, and some people

usually associated with the school system like to do that just vote Yes.

Not bothering to vote on any of this is equally fine.

Just don't slow down the line

of voters behind you by reading that stuff in the voting booth and agonizing

about your decision. At the zoo, you're admonished not to feed peanuts

to the elephants, probably because it encourages them. In the voting booth,

you shouldn't vote for that kind of stuff because it encourages our legislators

to come up with more.

I have not yet seen an actual

ballot, but there may be one additional question at the very end about

our local school bonds. As I explained two weeks ago in The Citizen, a

Yes there may be the better decision. Don't confuse that important local

issue with the foolish diversions with which our state legislative buffoons

sought to entertain us.

Claude Y. Paquin

Fayetteville

[email protected]