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Editorial: Keep that momentum
By Augusta Chronicle Editorial Staff
Nov. 3, 2018
Jody Hice has heard it and heard it and heard it.
The Republican representing Georgia’s District 10 in the U.S. House of Representatives keeps getting lectured to by critics, telling him supposedly how bad things are.
But when Hice spoke to a group in Columbia County a couple of weeks ago, he let the audience in on his response to those critics. It’s the ultimate comeback.
He asks them: Are you better off now than you were two years ago?
Even if folks don’t like President Trump, and even if they don’t like his policies, “the answer always is yes,” Hice said.
And that’s what this election is all about.
We are asking you to cast your votes Nov. 6 to keep both Hice and U.S. Rep. Rick Allen, representing Georgia’s District 12, in Congress.
Why? Because you’re better off now than you were two years ago.
We’ll start with the newest reason first: In the latest jobs report released Friday, the U.S. economy added 250,000 jobs last month. The unemployment rate stayed at 3.7 percent – a 49-year low. And a typical worker’s earnings rose 3.1 percent over the year – the biggest jump since 2009.
Compare that with two years ago. Back then economic experts groused that America’s growth rate for its Gross Domestic Product was hovering at about 2 percent. The GDP is a broad quantitative measure of a country’s economic growth. And the experts said 2 percent was the new normal. We might not even see 3 percent any time soon.
Where is it now? At 3.5 percent. And that’s just a short dip from where it was three months ago – at 4.2 percent!
Those are a lot of percents to throw out there if you’re not an economics wonk, so in plain English: More people are working. Wages are up. Businesses are returning to the United States. Tax cuts for individuals and businesses are allowing companies to expand, as the strangling red tape of over-regulation is being prudently cut.
And what’s helping make that happen? The Republican majority in both houses of Congress.
“I tell young people – and I wish you’d do the same – I wish I was young again,” Allen told a town hall meeting in Evans on Oct. 27. Times, he said, have not been better for younger people to seize the opportunities presenting themselves in a resurging economy.
“Four years ago I would tell young people, ‘I’m not sure if we’re going to have the American dream again,’” Allen said. “I didn’t know lightning was going to strike two years ago. Today America’s back.”
Allen and Hice are helping bring it back – and by voting to keep them in office, you’re voting to keep the momentum going that’s making the economy, and your way of life, better.
So what, by comparison, do their opponents have to offer? Not much.
A vote for them basically would be saying that – after looking at the progress of the past two years – you’re willing to make a hard left into territory populated largely by promises propped up by socialist policies that won’t work – and haven’t worked.
In short, opponents on the left are promising prosperity – which you’ve already got – while delivering government dependency – which most Americans clearly don’t want.
Allen recently told the story of being on the campaign trail with Republican gubernatorial candidate Brian Kemp. A reporter asked Kemp what he meant when he said “we’re fighting for the soul of Georgia.” Allen echoed Kemp’s reply.
“In Georgia we have what’s called Georgia values,” Allen said. “We have a value system and a work ethic. Why do you think we’re the best state to locate a business in the past five years? Because we have a value system. That value system is being tested every day.”
Both Allen and Hice also need to stay in office because they still have a lot of work to do.
Allen sits on the House Agriculture Committee, and Congress still is grappling with the always-contentious, always-massive Farm Bill that returns for passage every few years. This year a big bone of contention is the proposed new work requirements.for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance program, often called food stamps. The House-backed proposal, which passed without a single Democrat vote, would raise the minimum required hours of required work or job training to 25 hours per week, and expands requirements for able-bodied adults.
Hice sits on the House Armed Services Committee, and both Hice and Allen represent districts that include Fort Gordon – which, as the new home of the U.S. Army Cyber Command, is poised to become possibly the most consequential U.S. military training and intelligence site of the 21st century. Keeping both men in office would help assure the fort is adequately supplied with the resources to perform its increasingly crucial mission. And that means prosperity for the Augusta area.
Allen sits on the House Education and the Workforce Committee. He’s already helped pass legislation that placed more education decisions into the hands of state and local governments. Now he wants to boost education through the president’s plan to create millions of internships nationwide.
On immigration, you can be assured that both Allen and Hice support strongly protected borders, and the only time they mention the word “amnesty” is when they place the word “no” in front of it.
Those are just a few specific issues. The bigger picture, as we said, involves a battle for something bigger.
“We are in a major fight literally on behalf of our country and our state. I don’t think any of us would have ever dreamed that right here in Georgia we would be having a candidate run for governor who is an outright socialist. But that’s where we are,” Hice said. “We’re seeing this across the country. The left has absolutely lost its way, lost its heart, and that’s why we cannot let up at all. We have got to finish the task that’s laid out before us.”
“This is where you stop them,” Allen said. “This is why this election is so important, doing what we’re doing.”
Allen’s and Hice’s work is part of something bigger – and it’s making America better.
Making America, dare we say, great again?
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