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AG hopefuls talk budget
Smith Preston
Preston Smith - photo by Submitted
What's next

Wednesday night's Forsyth County Republican Party debate features state insurance and safety fire commission candidates Ralph Hudgens and Maria Sheffield, as well as District 2 public service commission hopefuls John Douglas and Tim Echols. Doors open at 6 p.m. and the debates will begin at 6:30 p.m. in the commissioners’ meeting room in the Forsyth County Administration Building, 110 East Main St. in Cumming. For more information, visit www.forsythgop.org.
Forsyth County voters had a chance to hear from Republican candidates for the state attorney general Monday night.

The debate featuring Sam Olens and Preston Smith, as well as the candidates for the District 9 U.S. House seat, was one of two this week sponsored by the Forsyth County Republican Party.

The second event, which is Wednesday night, features state insurance and safety fire commission candidates Ralph Hudgens and Maria Sheffield. Also appearing are District 2 public service commission hopefuls John Douglas and Tim Echols.

Olens and Smith will meet in a runoff Aug. 10. Whoever emerges next week will advance to face Democrat Ken Hodges in the Nov. 2 general election.

Monday night, the GOP attorney hopefuls fielded several questions on various topics ranging from the federal health care bill and abortion rights to the functions of the attorney general’s office.

Both men said they support having a zero-based budget for the attorney general’s office.

Smith said if elected, he will voluntarily submit a zero-based budget.

“And I think when you bring transparency into the budgeting process, you begin to show where the waste, fraud and abuse is and you can cut the size and scope of government,” he said.

Smith said he thinks making the budget transparent will expose areas that can be trimmed.

Olens said he doesn’t understand why the state doesn’t have a zero-based budget.

“There’s no excuse for us not having zero-based,” Olens said. “There’s no excuse for not starting every year demonstrating how the money that you give is spent.”

Smith called the federal health care bill “one of the biggest atrocities we’ve ever seen the federal government attempt to impose.”

He thinks the attorney general should lead the fight against the bill, which he said is unconstitutional.

“There is nothing in Article 1 of the Constitution that authorizes the Congress to mandate that you buy health insurance or any other service,” Smith said.

“They simply do not have that power or that authority and we need to take them to court and make them defend by what authority and all the authorities defined by Article 1 that they’ve imposed this mandate.”

Olens also spoke against the bill, agreeing that it violates the Constitution.

“I call it a living tax,” he said. “The failure to buy something can not be commerce by definition. So what you’re being taxed on is for living, which has never before occurred, as Preston has stated ... If we do not win this suit, then the 10th Amendment really has no meaning.”

Both candidates said they are against abortion and support legislation to stop it. They also both said they oppose same sex marriage.