Oh you betcha! There's Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin preparing to go to Washington to attempt to glom on to some of that bailout cash. I live in Atlanta and I've been watching Atlanta goings-on for about 40 years now. So let me send a message to the taxpayers of America. Bailout cash for Atlanta? No way!

For at least two decades Atlanta has had a reputation for one of the most over-staffed and bloated city governments in the nation. The City of Atlanta has been a glorified jobs program for the poorly-educated graduates of one the nation's worst school systems (Atlanta Government Schools) for years. Before the taxpayers of this country fork over the money to cover these years of mismanagement there are just a few things the City of Atlanta should be required to do. Work on these goals and then come begging:

• Sell the Paulding County and Dawson Forest. Oh! Never heard of these massive City of Atlanta land holdings? It seems that Atlanta owns 10,000 acres in Paulding County, Georgia and another 10,130 in North Georgia near the city of Dawsonville. The Dawsonville property is extremely valuable North Georgia mountain land. The 10,000 Paulding County acres were purchased for $935 an acre 33 years ago. Before Atlanta comes begging for taxpayer money these two giant holdings should be sold. If the city wants to wait until the real estate market improves it could pledge to sell these properties within five years and use the proceeds to reimburse the taxpayers .. with interest. What do you think? Five thousand an acre? Let's see ... that adds up to about $100 million?
• Privatize Hartsfield International Airport. This idea was first floated by former Atlanta Mayor Andrew Young and it's been bouncing around ever since ... to the distress of Atlanta political types. Here's a link to a 14-year-old study from the Georgia Public Policy Foundation which indicates that revenues from the sale or lease of Hartsfield could amount to $166 million a year - and, as I said, this was 14 years ago. You can only imagine how much that figure would be today.
• As this presently stand it is illegal for the City of Atlanta to take one penny in revenue from the operation of Hartsfield. This is past asinine. By leasing of selling that airport Atlanta could be taking in hundreds of millions a year. Until the city is willing to take this step there should be no federal bailout.
• Privatize a few other things. Garbage collection and maintenance on city-owned vehicles, to name two. That would be a good start.
• Fire Some Folks. After all of the above has been accomplished .. then start sending out the pink slips. And don't give me that horse squeeze about how it would affect essential city services. How many times has some local TV station sent out undercover reporters to video city employees at work .. and how many times have we seen these people doing private errands, sleeping, and gobbling down Krispy Kremes while they were on the clock. Give me a break ... some of these people need to be collecting unemployment.
• Adjust pensions for city executives. Everybody else is taking it on the chin with their retirement funds ... why not the officials of any city coming to the federal taxpayers for a bailout?

There's your short list. You can forward this to your favorite elected official and tell them that you don't want Atlanta in your pocket until these things are done.