TOM MAGAZZU Editor The new legislative session is underway in Montgomery and the republican-led legislature has some work to do. The budget proposal from Gov. Bentley strips hundreds of millions of dollars from the Education Trust Fund to offset an underfunded general budget. RSA and immigration issues also give republicans an image crisis.

Prospects appear grim.

Many other states, whose constitutions don’t allow deficit spending, are also overburdened with obligations that return little or no revenue. We got fat and sassy during the years when revenues were high. Legislators irresponsibly spent more and more money yearly simply because we had it to spend and their constituents wanted it. Legislators were not unlike a teenager with a car and a week’s pay trying to impress a date. They had neither a sense of responsibility nor good judgment.

Instead of focusing on absolute need in areas involving the disadvantaged, they wanted to make everyone more comfortable. Legislators mistakenly surmised that the flow of revenue would always be there to support an everexpanding myriad of social programs.

Well, now it’s time to pay the piper. Those in the private sector work to provide for their families, to save for retirement, and to contribute to groups and individuals of their choice. They support state programs as a means of assisting others in need. These programs should be temporary, not a permanent blanket of security and convenience. More beneficiaries may translate into more state jobs, but neither should fall to the responsibility of the privatesector taxpayer.

We have to consider this as we balance tax increases with spending cuts.

We also need to remember that we cannot listen to the brass at the AEA because their concern is not for the students. They ostensibly represent teachers so that membership stays high and the association remains well-funded. If they could remain well-funded without considering the hard-working teachers, they would drop them in a second. They care ONLY about themselves.

Media assaults are coming from around the country about our new supposedly heartless immigration law.

Everyone from outside the area has an opinion on our immigration issues. Many of us who are affected by the issue also wear blinders. “There are too many innocent victims of the hastily crafted new law.” However, the members of their families are the ones who initially broke the law, whatever their reason. Immigration laws are in place for a reason. Every country has them. Most are much more restrictive than ours.

Just because someone is oppressed in their current set of circumstances, it doesn’t give them the right to break the law.

The reasoning of many bank robbers or those who manufacture meth is similar. All are breaking the law. If we want to modify the law, we should take a look at it. Until then, I’m not going to allow some progressives, or worse yet, organized and unemployed illegals marching on the capital, to guilt me into thinking that enforcing a long-standing immigration law is wrong.

Rumors still abound that many republicans and a few democrats want someone other than David Bronner to oversee the state’s retirement program. Apparently, they would prefer a committee of political appointees. They use recent under-performance statistics as justification for contemplating such a move.

In my mind, there is no justification for such an asinine proposal.

It’s my understanding that for the last 25 years the combined investments of RSA have generated an 8% average annual return. I would like to be able to brag about such performance in my meager investments. For that matter, I’d like to be able to show a 4% annual return since 2000. That’s the growth rate of the state’s pension plan during the same turbulent period.

For the sake of argument, what would this proposed group of political appointees do for the state in the areas of economic development? Would it be anything more than opening a new restaurant or package store?

Those who follow such things know that Bronner has been the catalyst for just about every economic development opportunity in this area during the past six or eight years. He has been a significant influence in dozens of projects throughout the state in at least the past decade. Bronner probably placed some strategic phone calls in favor of several dozen others. RSA also has dozens of investments in Alabama companies. Where would we be had it not been for Bronner during the past decade of economic turmoil?

David Bronner is as nonpolitical a person as you’ll find in any businessman of his stature. Some say he has an attitude. I sure hope so. To be effective on such a competitive world stage, he surely needs one. Yes, Bronner has missed one or two projections. However, he has had much more success than he has had failures.

Replacing David Bronner would be like reintroducing the firing squad as our form of capital punishment.