Author: Charles Hayslett
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Comparing Georgia and North Carolina, Chapter I
For a while now, I’ve been noodling on a piece comparing Georgia and North Carolina. The two states are obviously neighbors and have a lot in common. Their economies are similar. Their populations are about as close to identical as you can get (10.7 million for Georgia vs. 10.6 million for North Carolina). They both…
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One government program’s 30-year metamorphosis from well-intentioned economic development initiative to bloated tax giveaway
Recently I learned the General Assembly had established a joint House-Senate study committee to evaluate the various tax credits the state offers as economic development incentives. As it happens, I’ve been working off and on for a while now on a piece about Georgia’s Job Tax Credit (JTC) program and can save the committee some…
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For the 2023 House Rural Development Council, a quick primer on the sad state of Georgia’s rural economy
The Georgia House Rural Development Council begins its seventh year of deliberations on August 29th in Macon. Created in 2017 by the late House Speaker David Ralston, the group — made up primarily of rural legislators — has met several times each year since then and generated annual reports and legislative recommendations. Despite these efforts,…
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The making of a political earthquake that tipped the U.S. Senate
If football is a game of inches, politics is one of fractions — a glacial shift in demographics, incremental growth in voter registration, tiny changes in voter turnout. In isolation, individual events like these may seem small and insignificant. In combination, they are like the grinding of tectonic plates that can remake an entire landscape.…
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George Berry’s ‘crescent of poverty’ now an economic and political conundrum for Georgia Republicans
In the summer of 1969, a Hawkinsville, Ga., state legislator named John Henry Anderson opined to his hometown newspaper that rural Georgia was subsidizing the City of Atlanta, the state’s capital and largest municipality. That news item somehow caught the attention of Ivan Allen, Jr., then mayor of Atlanta, and he was not pleased. He…
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Introducing the New TIGC
Welcome to the new and improved Trouble in God’s Country. TIGC was first set up as a simple blog about a dozen years ago. I decided months ago that it was long overdue for a facelift and a technological overhaul. What you’re looking at now is the result. Visually, I hope it’s more appealing and…
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New NAEP documents Covid-19’s staggering impact on K-12 students, but begs a question: How much worse was damage in rural areas?
One of the stories I was working on late last year, when my wife’s illness forced me to take a hiatus from TIGC, was a deeper dive into the state’s K-12 performance. Up until then, my evaluation of education at a county level had focused on educational attainment levels; I was studying local populations after…
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Mapping the rise and fall of Georgia per capita income performance
In my last piece, I summarized some of my recent research into the per capita income (PCI) “cold case” I’ve been noodling over for the past year or so and promised several follow-ups. This is the first of those. As a starting point, I thought it might be useful to spread some key data points…
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More TIGC lessons from the 2022 governor’s race
Further notes from a deep (and continuing) dive into the results of Georgia’s 2020 General Election: Georgia is as divided politically as it is economically, educationally, and health-wise — and those divisions have all taken shape over roughly the same time period. I’ll start here with a little history lesson. In 1990, Lt. Governor Zell…
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Early TIGC lessons from Tuesday’s gubernatorial election
Yesterday’s gubernatorial election showed us at least a couple of things, neither of which was particularly surprising. The first is that there is no apparent reason for Democratic candidates to venture into rural Georgia again. To her credit, Stacey Abrams, the party’s gubernatorial nominee for the second time, made a game effort in rural Georgia,…