Tom Baxter

Atlanta

Columnist at SaportaReport

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Articles

Firing the tax collectors is no way to reduce the national debt

1 week ago | saportareport.com | Tom Baxter

It’s easy to muster sympathy for CDC scientists doing critical research and National Park rangers protecting the environment, but this April, the nation’s tax collectors could use some love as well. Last week the acting head of the Internal Revenue Service, Melanie Krause, resigned over an agreement reached without her knowledge that will allow the Department of Homeland Security to access IRS files of people suspected of being undocumented immigrants.
Foreshortened session, resignation and long-awaited PSC races signal a political reset

2 weeks ago | saportareport.com | Tom Baxter

This year’s General Assembly got off to a late start due to inclement weather and ended unexpectedly with a number of issues still unresolved. In times as dangerous as these, what more could a sensible lawmaker ask for? It may have been a disagreement over legislation restricting the use of school zone speed cameras that prompted Lt. Gov. Burt Jones to abruptly declare the Senate adjourned shortly after 9 p.m. Friday, while the House was still grinding sausage.
In new administration, retribution trumps the price of eggs

3 weeks ago | saportareport.com | Tom Baxter

A flurry of pundits, several polls and the president himself have all agreed that the last election came down to the price of eggs and bread. “Very simple word, groceries. Like almost — you know, who uses the word? I started using the word — the groceries. When you buy apples, when you buy bacon, when you buy eggs, they would double and triple the price over a short period of time, and I won an election based on that,” Donald Trump said on “Meet the Press” in December.
Kemp's big win, Ossoff's race and Mississippi's typos

1 month ago | saportareport.com | Tom Baxter

It was fitting that after the last arms had been twisted and the deciding votes locked down, the concluding words spoken in opposition to Governor Brian Kemp’s tort reform bill came not from Democrats but indirectly from Donald Trump. State Senator Colton Moore, who describes himself as Trump’s floor leader in the legislature, was the last to speak before final passage of the bill Friday afternoon.
With swagger, DOGE approaches the third rail

1 month ago | saportareport.com | Tom Baxter

Social Security is often called “the third rail of American politics,” a term that harkens back to the old streetcar days when most city folks understood that touching the third rail of a trolley line could kill you. Maybe we need a new expression for the current condition of the federal agency, which sent a check to 73 million Americans this month, one more attuned to the age of electric vehicles and artificial intelligence.
Wildfires, measles and the long-term effect of DOGE

1 month ago | saportareport.com | Tom Baxter

We should probably be more worried about wildfires and measles than we have been so far. Last week, the Centers For Disease Control reported 222 cases of measles in 12 states, including Georgia. That doesn’t sound like a big number, but it’s nearly as many cases as there were in all of 2024 and has so far claimed the lives of two people.
Trump and the wire services: When being there's not worth it anymore

1 month ago | saportareport.com | Tom Baxter
DOGE firings smack more of payback than efficiency

2 months ago | saportareport.com | Tom Baxter

My dad was quite the joker. Sometimes, driving past a city or state work crew back in the 1950s, he’d roll down the car window and yell, “Got it made!”That was his way of reflecting the widespread working-class opinion that any government job, even on a swing blade crew along a broiling hot Alabama highway, offered more security and easier working conditions than an employer like the L&N Railroad. Mostly he was right about this.
In harm's way: The challenges of 21st Century warfare

2 months ago | saportareport.com | Tom Baxter

Last week, a merchant ship bound from the Suez Canal to Romania collided with the nuclear aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman in the Mediterranean. The collision pierced the Truman’s hull above the waterline, but there were no injuries or damage to the ship’s nuclear assets. With so many fateful events developing right now, this mishap might seem an odd way to approach the topic of 21st-century warfare, but it’s instructive in several ways.
State of Capture: A story with a familiar ring

2 months ago | saportareport.com | Tom Baxter

Most Americans aren’t familiar with the story of the Guptas, but you can bet your bottom bitcoin that Elon Musk knows it very well. Like so much of the history being made these days, it’s an immigrants’ tale. The Guptas are three brothers who immigrated to South Africa at just the time in the 1990s when it was transitioning from the old apartheid government to Nelson Mandela’s Rainbow Nation. They were small-timers, but they arrived at a time and place rich with possibilities.