Ga. Legislature descends into tax-cut madness
The state of Georgia is furloughing 25,000 employees, and in months to come school districts face the prospect of laying off teachers and crowding more children into each classroom.
Cities and counties face cuts in police, fire and 911 personnel, and legislators can’t seem to find a way to fund a statewide trauma-care network that would save up to 700 lives a year.
Around the state, prosecutors are being forced to take unpaid furloughs. Every day they’re not on the job, another 500 criminal cases back up unprosecuted. Many will end up being dismissed.
Oh, and did I mention that our roads still don’t work, our SAT scores still suck, and that even before the recession hit, our state mental-health system was so poorly funded and badly run that it drew federal attention as a threat to those it serves?
Nor is the problem temporary. Revenue projections suggest that in the next few years, the state could face annual budget deficits of a billion dollars or more.
Confronted by a revenue crisis of that magnitude, how does the Legislature respond? It votes to make it worse, approving hundreds of millions of dollars in business tax cuts and moving to abolish the corporate income tax, which could cut future revenue by $1 billion a year.
The idea —- or more accurately, the ideology —- is that lower taxes will create jobs. Maybe around the margins, they will. We may indeed attract a few bottom-line industries whose main siting criteria is whether the corporate tax load here is a percentage point or two lower than in a competing state.
But roads that are permanently clogged are already costing us even more jobs.
The loss of 700 lives a year because Georgia lacks trauma care available in other states will cost us jobs, and a whole lot more than jobs.
Under-educated children will cost us jobs, and will cost them a better future.
Few people dispute the fact that budget cuts in state and local government are necessary. Everybody’s cutting back, and government has to share that pain. However, choosing to compound the crisis by enacting massive tax cuts —- what we are watching is madness.
Businesses —- good-paying businesses with the potential to create growth and prosperity —- come to places with roads that work and schools that teach and communities that are safe and state parks that are attractive and well-kept —- or at least open. Only government can do those things.
Likewise, the employees needed to run those kinds of businesses are drawn to places where government helps to create a decent quality of life. Jobs are drawn to places where government works and solves problems. That’s not Georgia.
Here, our Department of Transportation is a dysfunctional mess, and the solution apparently agreed upon by state leaders will make it worse. They are taking a system crippled by political meddling and “fixing it” by making it even more vulnerable to such meddling.
As if they don’t have enough to do, some of those same legislators complain that MARTA —- which functions without state money —- doesn’t operate quite as well as they might prefer. Others plot ways to take over Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, suggesting that the state could do better than the city of Atlanta in running an airport already nationally recognized for efficiency.
Yet this fall, Hartsfield will open a rail line capable of moving 10,000 passengers an hour to its new rental car facility. Meanwhile, how’s that state commuter rail line coming?
Perhaps the best reflection of the mindset at the Capitol can be found in a few little-noticed lines of one major tax-cut bill.
Under House Bill 481, the state Department of Revenue will be required to send a letter to each business affected by a particular tax change. Legislators even dictate the letter’s wording:
“… the Georgia State House and State Senate passed and the Governor signed the J.O.B.S. Act … believing that entrepreneurs and business owners, not government, are best equipped to create jobs and sustainable economic growth for Georgia. We appreciate your efforts to create true economic stimulus for our great state.
Thank you!”
The cost of sending that message can’t be measured in just the price of paper, envelope and postage.
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155 comments Add your comment
DB, Gwinnettian
March 30th, 2009
7:29 am
Great stuff, Jay.
However, it includes one typo, which I’ve fixed below (see emphasis):
“We may indeed attract a few bottom-feeder industries whose main siting criteria is whether the corporate tax load here is a percentage point or two lower than in a competing state.”
I Report/ You Whine
March 30th, 2009
7:33 am
Spoken like a true socialist, Bookman.
You know things are dangerously off track when even the commies in China are worried that Obama is pushing for too much government, too much spending and too much borrowing.
With China providing the warning, Sen Judd Gregg, who withdrew as Obama’s nominee to head the Commerce Department, stated that Obama’s proposed 10-year spending plan and soaring deficits would bankrupt the nation: “People will not buy our debt, our dollar will become devalued.”-AmSpec
This is a silly argument, just look at places like New York City, Atlanta, Kalifornia and all the other Tax Crazies, every one of them have huge deficits and shrinking populations.
You’re just jealous.
Tonto
March 30th, 2009
7:46 am
Jay, it is not just the letter being sent out, but what is your take on HB 481 – Jobs, Opportunity, and Business Success Act of 2009 in total. I don’t believe the Governor has signed it yet, but I see it as another Republican give away. The way I read this bill, a business can layoff their present workers and replace them off of the state unemployment list and receive $2400 per employee in two years without increasing the number of employees. They also reduce their payment into the unemployment fund by $25-$125 per quarter per employee. Why wouldn’t a business layoff their present janitor and replace him with an unemployed worker and pocket the money? This bill is especially bad for unskilled workers like cashiers and service people who can be easily replaced by the unemployed. Is this a payoff to Kia, too? If Kia delays hiring their auto workers until this summer when the bill is effective, they could receive millions of additional dollars to send back to South Korea that Georgia taxpayers would have to replace. It seems that this will be bad for hiring now because businesses will hold off hiring until the bill is effective and bad for those that have a job now that will be laid off when the bill becomes effective.
Redneck Convert
March 30th, 2009
7:51 am
Well, as a godly Conservative I sure am glad to see some tax cuts. We waste billions of bucks on schooling. All a kid needs is to be able to read a paycheck and maybe do a little adding and subtracting. Who cares if the GA test scores are at the bottom? All they do is get a kid into colledge and the colledges turn them into libruls. Most GA kids just want a pickup truck and a chainsaw and maybe a job that pays enough to rent a trailer and make truck payments. So why do the GA teachers keep teaching this fancy stuff that ain’t good for nothing in real life? If they can read a R after a name on a ballot they already know enough about politics and life.
I’m ready to see guvmint starved till all that’s left is the squeal. Have a good day everybody.
Taxpayer
March 30th, 2009
7:55 am
I just want to know how our Georgia businessmen are able to get around as well as they do with a Republican crammed that far up each one of their buttocks.
G
March 30th, 2009
7:59 am
How sad. More brilliance from the “I want something for nothing” crowd.
ByteMe
March 30th, 2009
8:02 am
The Republican mantra: when you don’t have vision, ideology is the next best thing!
Keep ‘em stupid and they’ll keep voting Republican.
Taxpayer
March 30th, 2009
8:07 am
I just cannot wait to vote for more of the Republican Party madness in future elections.
Such tough choices so far for governor. It’s really going to be hard to pick between the lesser educated Cagle, the Supremely reprimanded Handel, and an unFairlyTaxed Oxendine. This Republican Party is not only committing suicide, it’s digging its own grave. So pathetic.
The Anti-Wooten
March 30th, 2009
8:16 am
Failed policies from failed minds, such a shame. The GOP(Got 0 Ideas Party) will drag their regional base of followers into the 18th century kicking and screaming. Unfortunately, those of us that know better get to go along for the short bus ride.
Tonto
March 30th, 2009
8:18 am
If tax cuts for the rich are so good, why did manufacturing employment increase by 300,000 under Clinton and decrease by 4.4 million under Bush 2 and decrease by 1.3 million under Bush 1?
Taxpayer
March 30th, 2009
8:18 am
Nine Georgia banks have failed in the last seven months
Bank; date failed; assets
Omni National Bank (Atlanta): March 27; $956 million
FirstCityBank (Stockbridge); March 20; $297 million
Freedom Bank of Georgia (Commerce); March 6; $173 million
FirstBank Financial Services (McDonough); Feb. 6; $337 million
Haven Trust Bank (Duluth); Dec. 12; $572 million
First Georgia Community Bank (Jackson); Dec. 5; $237.5 million
The Community Bank (Loganville); Nov. 21; $681 million
Alpha Bank (Alpharetta): Oct. 24; $354.1 million
Integrity Bank (Alpharetta); Aug. 29; $1.1 billion
Source: FDIC
Darned regulations are the problem. We would not be having any troubles if we just did everything like Ayn Rand says. I say get rid of the FDIC. What good are they. Adding all that insurance costs on banks and causing them to fail. That’s the problem. Too much in your face government and regulations.
I Report/ You Whine
March 30th, 2009
8:19 am
Tax and spend, blah, blah, blah-
Ask his pals in Europe, where cap-and-trade has not reduced emissions or produced a thriving “green” economy. Ask state lawmakers who, when now faced with the prospect of wrecking their own economies, can’t stomach the idea.
Just don’t ask the alarmists. They live in an alternate reality and while pleasurable for the few of them, it scares (VIDEO) the rest of us. That an increasing number of elected officials are more frightened by these actual cap-and-tax ramifications, rather than phony global warming projections, offers hope. -AmSpec
Dhimmi Carter Part Duhex.
Tonto
March 30th, 2009
8:19 am
If tax cuts for the rich are so good, why did non-farm employment increase by almost 23 million jobs under Clinton and only 2 million under Bush?
G
March 30th, 2009
8:21 am
Georgia Legislature = corporate tool.
I love this!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=veNOafvrW3M&feature=related
Bud Wiser
March 30th, 2009
8:22 am
I see the usual moonbat trolls have arrived already..
Did anyone ever stop to think (I know that thinking is such a difficult concept for the intellectually challenged left) that there are other factors at work here as well? For one, even the leftist rag forecasts doom and gloom for those counties that already have overloaded their plates with ‘free money’ from the government, and now that time is coming when one must pay the piper.
And everyone is whining because…………..?
No whining heard previously, just mouths happily sucking on the government teats. (One day I may have to relate the story of the “free corn”.)
No one complains, some even applaud, when the government throws trillions of dollars into a failed entitlement system of lazy, unschooled, drug abusing, just plain no good people, but when AIG decides to act within the law and observe the accountability of legally signed contracts and pay bonuses to a few employees (I admit they are not deserved, but they were legal), Congress and the president try to inflame the situation and induce a national coronary over it.
Now O forces the head of GM to resign, but has no one to appoint in his place. No one in mind. But, I’m sure that whoever that person may eventually be, it will be from a political, and certainly not a business, application.
The socialization of Amerika continues.
gttim
March 30th, 2009
8:23 am
When you elect people who think that government is the problem to run the government, this is what you get. Would you hire somebody who hates dogs to take care of yours?
G
March 30th, 2009
8:33 am
The Georgia Budget and Policy Institute points out that the Legislature’s own fiscal office projects that jobs created under the credit could cost — get this — $265,000 a piece. That’s because the tax credit is expected to incentivize employers to create only 2,200 new jobs, but it could be applied to up to 250,000 positions that would open up even with the incentive program. In other words, for every job that’s created, the government could give a tax credit for more than 100 jobs that would have been created anyway.
The 2,200 jobs is projected by the legislature’s fiscal office to cost the state $594.7 million in tax revenues.
Now who do you think will be expected to somehow make up the difference?
Taxpayer
March 30th, 2009
8:33 am
Georgia unemployment rate at 9.3 percent in February and 87 Ga. counties post double-digit unemployment. Wow. We better hurry up and get some of those Republican ideologies implemented before things take a turn for the worse. Good thing we have a robust housing market to sustain us. One in eight Georgia mortgage holders delinquent, in foreclosure. I mean, that’s a lot of good houses to pick from at upcoming auctions.
On a side note, you all know that we would not be having all these problems if the AJC would just quit reporting on them. This is clearly their fault. At least, that’s what I keep hearing from the Republicans.
Cherokee
March 30th, 2009
8:37 am
Too bad. But it won’t change anytime soon. As Redneck says, Georgians automatically vote for the Republican, no matter what. How much worse will things have to get in Georgia than the rest of the country before they wake up and vote out idiots like Chip Rogers? Who, unfortunately, is my Senator…
Corporal
March 30th, 2009
8:40 am
Jay:
If you don’t like tax cuts how come the AJC keeps cutting the size of its paper? There was just a little breeze this morning and I had to chase that “onion skin” sucker all over the yard.
Oh, but I forget. Obama has a PLAN to use my taxes to bail out your paper.
Joey
March 30th, 2009
8:40 am
Goodness gracious, Jay. You have clearly shown that our situation is intolerable. (This is where your work excels. When you are attacking Republicans. It is like you have a calling.)
If they believed what your write, any sensible person would move out of this miserable state as fast as their Ryder Truck would take them.
Taxpayer
March 30th, 2009
8:48 am
Dang, to look at the economic situation here in Georgia, one might get the false impression that it was run by Democrats, at least if the Republicans have their way. I wonder how the Georgia Republicans are spinning this mess. I know, it’s all the fault of the Georgia Labor Commissioner. Is that it.
Corporal
March 30th, 2009
9:00 am
A great symbol of patriotism used to combat the tyranny and taxation of the British ………. time to bring this baby out again !
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gadsden_flag
Your morning jolt: Embryonic stem cell bill won't move out of House, Barnes on a comeback, federal demands for automakers | Political Insider
March 30th, 2009
9:11 am
[...] Some opinion: Jay Bookman on tax-cut madness in the state Legislature. [...]
Bosch
March 30th, 2009
9:12 am
Yet, we still keep on electing them because they are God fearing and all that. Ya’ know, loving the Lord is great and all that, but when you are running your state into bankruptcy, it’s time for something more relevant. Lovin’ the Lord, and praying that it gets better just isn’t quite enough.
Bosch
March 30th, 2009
9:16 am
And they are also running business out of the State because of their ideology – bio-med companies will leave because they think a bunch of cells is a baby, tourism is down because we can’t buy booze on the Lord’s day – maybe it is time to get the old horse vaccinated and feed him better hay and shine up the old wagon in the shed.
Corporal
March 30th, 2009
9:17 am
HEADLINE/ABC: “Top Story: Obama Demands Detroit Get Lean and Mean, Emphasis on the Mean … ”
Obama “demands”? “DEMANDS”?
AmVet
March 30th, 2009
9:17 am
The morons in our State Legislature and our laughable “Pray for Rain, Get the Traitors their Flag back” Governor are emblematic of a state full of Reich-wing crackers and flat-earth bible-thumpers.
What the hell else do you expect from a backwater outpost that ranks 46th in reading comprehension and 47th in math scores?
Bosch
March 30th, 2009
9:17 am
And I think the Legislators need to furlough themselves before we start laying off teachers.
Joe Matarotz
March 30th, 2009
9:18 am
Jay! This is your best column in months. Just imagine if you spread it over five days, in lieu of the generally inane drivel you generate. Then you could actually include the supporting facts and documentation. It might actually start to resemble – dare I say it? – reporting.
Let’s carry it a step further. Imagine if you did that 52 weeks a year. THen imagine if the rest of the staff at the AJC did that. Imagine reporting the news factually instead of giving it your own personal slant. Maybe the AJC wouldn’t be staring at the possibility of going belly up.
You’re right – that’s just wishful thinking. But I’m old enough to remember when the media reported the news instead of trying to be the news. Those days are long gone.
Bosch
March 30th, 2009
9:19 am
Corporal,
It’s a headline not a quote – calm down.
Corporal
March 30th, 2009
9:21 am
HEADLINE/CBS: White House: GM, Chrysler Not Viable
“Obama To Announce Industry Restructuring; Wagoner Out At GM, Majority Of Board May Follow …”
I never thought in my lifetime I would see a President on such a “power grab”. This is really starting to get scary …..
Corporal
March 30th, 2009
9:23 am
Bosch:
Yes. A headline from a liberal mainstream news organization ……
)
Corporal
March 30th, 2009
9:25 am
HEADLINE/CNN: “North Korea rocket shown on launch pad …”
Can we say “cruise missle” here ?
Corporal
March 30th, 2009
9:26 am
Excuse me: missile
ESR
March 30th, 2009
9:26 am
Any state in the nation that has to incorprate the grades of the students of Clayton County into the mix will have the lowest SAT scores in the country. The Bell Curve can’t help the numbers when Clayton County is involved.
Bosch
March 30th, 2009
9:29 am
Corporal,
AND……………..still not a quote.
Taxpayer
March 30th, 2009
9:32 am
Didn’t our Georgia Republicans under the dome give themselves a raise and a pat on the back before they got started this session because they knew, like they usually do, that they were going to be turning out some really good work for we the people. Why, I’m sure it is worth every penny that we the people pay just to keep their smiles all nice and pretty too, with those top-notch healthcare plans, amongst other things, that we buy for them. By the way, how is good old boy, Sonny, making out with that special $21 million dollar loan and that special retroactive tax break that he got.
G
March 30th, 2009
9:34 am
Off topic
Obamas Paying For White House Renovations Personally
What a refreshing change!
http://nymag.com/news/intelligencer/55679/
Counselor
March 30th, 2009
9:36 am
Joe Matarotz needs to get over his crush on Jay and move on with his life. He’s starting to embarrass himself. Cyberstalking is so, well, ewwww.
hryder
March 30th, 2009
9:41 am
With so many proposals offered, check this: a)replace current legislature with unicameral system, b)establish term limits of a maximum of three total or ten years as a legislator, c)no retirement or health insurance for state legislators, and d)legislature meets only in odd numbered years for a maximum of 90 days with only one special session possible for a maximum of ten days. Side comment-All news is slanted, if for no other reason that it was reported and other information available was unreported due to the minds eye of the reporter.
Corporal
March 30th, 2009
9:45 am
Bosch:
O.K. ……… here are the quotes and they are scarier that “demands” !!
“It marks a new phase in the Obama administration’s turnaround efforts — a carefully calibrated, starker-than-expected move that the president owns completely.”
“Precisely how the White House wanted this to be viewed: “Wagoner doesn’t get to be the boss anymore because the President of the United States acted like one and fired him,” Mike Lupica writes in the New York Daily News.”
This is an unprecedented grab for power ………
DB, Gwinnettian
March 30th, 2009
9:48 am
Bosch @ 9.12:
Yet, we still keep on electing them because they are God fearing and all that.
It’s not quite as simple as that, but you’re on to something. I know a couple of fairly rational, sane folks who know that the national and state GOP do not serve their interests in several measurable ways (Jay brought up transportation; healthcare’s another area). And yet they have had it drilled into them for years by their religious and political leadership that the alternative is not an alternative based on one issue alone–abortion; specifically, the national parties’ respective stances on whether elective terminations should be criminalized or not.
Such folks have become convinced that voting for the major party alternative is quite literally a sin. And I don’t know what can be done about this, other than (perhaps) what the Obama has attempted to do for the past year, both as a candidate and as POTUS, which is to continue to engage the Christian right whenever possible and perhaps allow individuals to re-consider whether a public policy stance on criminalization v. legalization might not be the determining factor in a vote after all.
Counselor
March 30th, 2009
9:49 am
We’re going to make Yugos here in Georgia. I hope Obama has better plans for the nation.
PoliticalMan
March 30th, 2009
9:49 am
It would be so cool for the knuckle-draggers who blog here to write a column for the AJC since they are so critical. At least more would get to see their pathetic, ultra-simplistic, irrational, stupidity.
I Report/ You Whine
March 30th, 2009
9:52 am
The hits for New Yorkers just keep on coming. After being socked with a whopping subway and bus fare hike, New York families making at least $300,000 are now being walloped with a 7.85 percent tax rate and those over $500,000, an 8.97 percent rate. But it’s not only the rich who are being soaked by the budget unveiled by Governor David Paterson and legislative leaders.
“We made the tough choices necessary to address that challenge through shared sacrifice and responsible budgeting,” Gov. David Paterson said in a written statement issued with legislative leaders. “The agreement we are announcing today closes the largest deficit in state history, stabilizes our finances and institutes critical reforms that will help eliminate waste and inefficiency in our government.”
They Waste/ You Pay
ew
College Professor
March 30th, 2009
9:54 am
Jay: How come in this and other articles you write about taxes and spending you never refer to the article in this newspaper some months ago that an Emory law and theology professor wrote asserting that the taxpayer spends $110 billion dollars a year and has spent that amount every year for the past 10 years on children whose parents cannot afford them? If government required your beloved poor to use birth control to reduce their birthrate, maybe, just maybe, there would be additional money available for roads, police, parks, schools, etc. without imposing a crushing burden of taxes on the middle class.
Georgia Republican Party
March 30th, 2009
9:56 am
Dear Jay and your loyal non-conservative following,
We are tired, tired we say, of your never-ending efforts to make us look as though we do not care about our constituency. Therefore, we are writing you this post in order to set the record straight. We believe in family values and tax cuts. There. We hope that helps you to understand that you are just plain wrong about everything.
DB, Gwinnettian
March 30th, 2009
9:56 am
It would be so cool for the knuckle-draggers who blog here to write a column for the AJC since they are so critical.
PoliticalMan, you seem to have forgotten that the AJC requested just that of our righties, to fill the departing Jim Wooten’s “Thinking Right” column. They asked conservatives to fill out an online application form, did call-backs for the best applicants, and they printed (I think) ten of the best-of-the-best.
I don’t know if other newspapers have made the process quite that open-ended, but it was interesting to read. Alas, I cannot provide a link to this because (typically? seems that way… I’m sure Jay knows where those rightie-columns are posted, but I couldn’t find them.) the ajc.com “Opinion” page cite is pretty murky.
Some of those conservative columns were reasonable, some were just the kind of name-calling and foolishness, gussied up a bit for public consumption, you’d expect.
Wonder when they’re going to announce the winner? Anyone know?
Bosch
March 30th, 2009
9:59 am
DB,
“Such folks have become convinced that voting for the major party alternative is quite literally a sin.”
Of course my examples were on the exageration side, but this is bingo.
I know this may sound harsh, and I don’t mean this against your friends, but that isn’t rational thinking. And you’re right, part of this too, is the Dems fault – and they need to get out there and reach out to the religious right and make them see that they aren’t the evil Darth Vader baby murderers that the Republicans have quite effectively made them all out to be.