Here's a simulation game county commissions should be forced to play: Make-believe the whole country is in a recession, and about to engage in at least one war front. The state this county is located in has a $500 million budget shortfall. Your county has recently enacted a no-smoking policy in restaurants located within the county, thus causing an immediate 20-25% decrease in restaurant business traffic, which leads to further crimping of sales tax revenue. The residents of your county are possibly facing higher property taxes and/or sales taxes to make-up for budget shortfalls.

Now, with the aforementioned conditions, assume the following:

The U.S. Department of State has decided to grant citizenship to 12,000 refugees from a faraway land, where none of them coming here speak English. In fact, they can best be described as "primitive" with no concept of time, days, a cellphone, a stove, or even what a doorknob is used for. Your county will accept 635 of these people. The federal government will aid the refugees by paying the rent and light bill for four months after their arrival, after which time, these non-English speaking people will be required to somehow find a job to "pay their own way."

As county commissioners in this simulation, it is your job to identify the preparations needed in the county infrastructure to accomodate these refugees, along with absorbing the likely financial burden these non-producing people will demand from you.

Okay...ready...set...Go, DeKalb County!

The preceding simulation was not, as you may have figured out, a "simulation," but an actual event. As twice reported in the AJC last week, the U.S. State Department has approved plans to resettle about 12,000 Bantus (refugees from war-torn Somalia) in 31 states, including Georgia, Florida, Kentucky, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia. Resettlement agencies expect to shepherd up to 635 Bantus in the next two years into apartments in Clarkston, Decatur and Stone Mountain...all in the heart of DeKalb County.

In Georgia, there have been approximately 4,000 Somalis previously settled since 1992. About 120 Somali Bantu already live in Clarkston, Ga. Neither the state nor the county has any "say" in what the State Department decides, so, the county will likely have to shoulder the biggest part of the burden that doesn't get taken care of by federal immigration agencies.

PV Wonders if Madeline Albright Is Really Gone: Boy! And to think we were worried about stupid things like driver licenses for illegal aliens and the incompetency of the INS. Little did we think our own State Department would act unilaterally to "save" the world.

The fact is, as we've all heard the stories up and down the block, there are people in danger of dying ALL over the world, and even in this country. Yet, our federal government can decide to fund the importation of refugees from a non-English speaking country to the already strained resources of the United States?

And, even if the federal agencies are able to take care of the Bantu, that's our tax dollars working on projects that don't help improve any American's life, nor help secure our borders. In fact, these actions hurt the security of our borders. Whose Constitution is the State Department reading?