Accountability law would be great

Published 12:18 am Wednesday, November 14, 2007

As the old poem states: “The election is over, the results are known; the will of the people has clearly been shown…..”

Of course that is only a portion of the poem, but the election for Adams County and the state elected officials is over and we should support those elected.

One thing I would like to see is a branch of the state auditor’s office charged with auditing the promises of those who were elected. Wouldn’t it be cool if promises made during the campaign phase are not kept, the elected official would be required to repay their salaries for the previous term. To be fair, this could be prorated so that if one half are kept then only one half of the salary would be repaid. This surely would change the campaign strategy and give the voters a clearer look at candidates. The main problem with this is that such a law would have to be passed by elected officials who made many promises they have not kept. Now this is a very broad statement because there are many elected officials who have kept the promises they made but I’m not sure there are enough to pass such legislation.

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One of the promises we all hear from nearly every candidate is “more jobs.” The truth is that if elected officials spent the required time to recruit industry, they would not be doing what they are elected to do.

That is why we have professional recruiters working to accomplish this. What they can do is support the professional recruiter, work with other elected officials and make the city, county and state more desirable to industry and business — this is what they should promise.

Still, it would be a cool law — don’t you think?

Forest Persons

Natchez resident