Category: General
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CDC and AJC confirm what TIGC has been telling you for years: rural Georgians are dying younger than their urban cousins
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution led Wednesday morning’s print edition with a story headlined “Georgians in rural areas more likely to die early.” The story was based on a new report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). I’m glad to see my long-ago employer covering this issue, but it’s not exactly like this…
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More than half of Georgia’s counties in bottom national quartile for health outcomes
One of the things I’ve been working on lately is a piece ranking all 159 Georgia counties nationally on a range of socioeconomic measures. The last chunk of data I needed was the 2024 release from County Health Rankings & Roadmaps (CHRR). That report hit the web on March 24th, and I’ve decided it merits…
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Can Brian Kemp make Paul Krugman feel better?
Paul Krugman, the New York Times columnist and Nobel Prize-winning economist, seems even gloomier than usual these days, especially about the state of rural America. He recently went up with a column headlined “The Mystery of White Rural Rage,” which he called “arguably the single greatest threat facing American democracy.” He added: “I have no…
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Would ‘special rural districts’ be a first step down the slippery slope to county consolidation?
In a curious bit of legislative strategy, the House Governmental Affairs Committee last week combined a couple of bills that didn’t seem to have a whole lot to do with each other. House Bill 1253, as originally written, would have overhauled the way appointments are made to the boards of directors of the state’s 12…
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Georgia vs. North Carolina, Chapter II: Educational Attainment
The second in a series of occasional posts comparing Georgia and North Carolina.
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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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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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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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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,…