Georgia legislators said when heading to Atlanta for the 2010 session of the General Assembly that they would not consider essential services when searching for budget cuts to make up for the limp economy.
As state representatives and senators, their job is to provide services that protect the public.
That's the whole reason for even having the lawmaking body.
That may have all changed. Just this week, the Georgia Forestry Commission lamented that it is unsure if it can handle even an average fire season this year because of all the hacking away at its funding and equipment by the state and forest industries.
This is definitely alarming news to those who have invested in the timber industry.
It's also something that is likely to give communities that feed off and thrive off the timber industry an incurable case of the jitters.
It wouldn't take much to knock most of them into economic straits.
Lawmakers understandably are having a hard time balancing need with want, and all of that with actual revenue.
There's only so much to go around, and that means someone is going to get cut out.
Let the department or service that gets cut out or left out of the budget for fiscal year 2011 be the ones that are unnecessary for the protection and preservation of Georgians and their property.
If that means a temporary cessation to some of the frills, moving them to the state closet or shed for now, that's OK.
It's not the job of legislators to make sure communities and counties are entertained.
Their job is to make sure that education, including secondary education, is reachable to all and that all services that provide protection to Georgians remain intact.
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