Dalton Daily Citizen
DALTON — 13.1 percent.
That is the unemployment rate in the Dalton Metro area right now.
And the statistics don’t suggest that it will go away anytime soon.
Metro Dalton had, by far, the highest January unemployment rate among the 14 metro areas in Georgia. The second highest was Albany at 11.8 percent followed by Rome at 10.9 percent, Atlanta at 10.8 percent and Columbus at 10.4 percent.
The state’s unemployment rate of 10.4 percent in January topped the previous record high of 10.3 percent in December 2009., and it marks the 28th straight month that Georgia has exceeded the national seasonally adjusted rate, which was 9.7 percent.
By any stretch of the imagination, jobs and job creation should be the No. 1 issue for any local, state or national politician right now.
Want to solve the state’s budget crisis? Figure out how to create more private sector jobs.
Want to dig the country out of its current economic malaise? Don’t create a stimulus that puts more people on the public payroll. Push forward a plan that helps companies start adding, not cutting, jobs.
We know it, you know it, but do our state and federal leaders know it?
Sadly, the answer seemingly continues to be no.
Want proof.
Take a look at some of the spending that our state’s leader is still trying to get included in this year’s budget, despite the massive cuts that will have to made to our secondary and higher education systems.
Sonny boy is still pushing for $9 million to finish a horse show complex at the Houston County fairgrounds and another $500,000 to move Little League Baseball Inc. to, you guessed it, Houston County as well.
We guess these are good for Houston County, but Little Leaguers and horses don’t put much extra income into the tax stream.
He also wants to spend $10 million to help move the College Football Hall of Fame to Atlanta. Say what?
The federal picture isn’t much better.
The president and Congress ought to be taking a knife to all nonessential spending, but we have moved so far away from knowing what essential spending is that we can’t figure out what is killing us.
We want government to be all things for us, but we can no longer afford that.
We can’t keep adding bridges to nowhere and horse barns and lord knows what else we don’t even know about.
Our focus has to be on private sector job creation. When people have jobs suddenly our government budgets will start to bounce back as people begin to buy things and pay more income taxes.
You would think we would know that. Local officials in Dalton and many other towns around the state know it.
But in the real halls of power in Atlanta and Washington, we have to wonder if anyone is really getting it.
