On primary day last month, DeKalb County, Georgia rejected T-Splost and founded a new city in her midst but the Great Recession/most anemic “Recovery” since the Great Depression continues and no amount of new cities, transportation plan Bs, nor Democrats or Republicans in the State Legislature, can fix it. Why?

Because Georgia (nor any other state without oil beneath their feet) can’t fix what Washington, D.C. has broken and national Democrats don’t want to.

What broke the economy? Primarily a housing boom, fueled by Democrat-supported “affordable housing” schemes gone bust. Why didn’t President Barack Obama and his super-majority of Democrats fix it with their Stimulus, Dodd-Frank and Obamacare bills? Because those laws and others tripled the Bush budget deficits and made starting or expanding business more expensive.

The national Democratic Party is proud of its hostility to business. Yet, only private sector business can spur a real recovery. Sadly, the party of Jefferson, Jackson and a tax-cutting JFK died long ago. Yes, President Bill Clinton in 1994 decided to say yes to the first Republican Speaker of the House in 40 years to balance the budget while cutting capital gains taxes, thus extending the Reagan Recovery, but few Democrats supported him.

Obama is no Clinton. Own a business? Obama says you didn’t build that. The people on welfare that paid a sales tax for roads and bridges built it. Houston, we have a problem.

Last month marked the eleventh anniversary of this former South Carolina Democrat’s move to metro Atlanta to accept a corporate position after 14 years of private law practice. This month marks the 11th anniversary of our “conservative epiphany” and launching of a second career as an op-ed columnist that eventually led to a stint as the conservative voice for The Charlotte Observer before landing at Times News.

My conversion to the GOP was immediately prompted by a Democratic Party meeting I attended that summer before 911 featuring then Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney. I also broke bread with Senator Max Cleland, Rev. Joseph Lowry, and Billy McKinney. Rarely had I been surrounded by so much envy-fueled bitterness, anger and class envy.

Looking back, that meeting was merely the last straw for this former Democratic Party county chair and campaign manager. The first straw was the sight of American hostages being released by the Iranian terrorist regime before the newly inaugurated President Reagan issued his first orders as Commander in Chief. The second was the sound of fellow Democrats snickering when The Gipper called out the “evil empire”. Other straws included Democrat opposition to marginal tax rate cuts that fueled the economic boom, aid to the Contras and the defense build up that brought down the Soviet Union; and their savaging of Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas.

Adding insult to injury, Democrats have refused to admit the obvious lessons of history and their continued advocacy of proven failed high tax, business regulation and welfare policies that create poverty and their false cries against Republicans as racists that don’t care about the poor.

Thus, having just witnessed the greatest economic boom in world history fueled by Reaganite supply side economic policies;  my compassion for the poor and middle class compelled me to become a Republican. Yes, both parties have regularly spent too much, but there has never been an election cycle when the Democrats’ main complaint against Republicans wasn’t that the GOP spend too little

Care about the poor and middle class? So do I. That’s why I became a Republican.

On state and local matters, the inability to print money forces both parties toward responsible frugality; hence my two gubernatorial votes for Roy Barnes and support for Democrats named Stucky Benfield, Drenner and Henson for the State Legislature. We would also cite Redstate.com and 750 WSB’s radio talk show host Erick Erickson’s observation of a state GOP so beholden to big business that it is no better than many state Democrats.

Hence, I’ll be voting for several Democrats to serve us in Atlanta and Decatur, but I’ll never send another one to Capitol Hill or the White House until they quit demonizing job creators and let We the People bail ourselves out.