ATLANTA — Gov. Sonny Perdue’s reduced state revenue projections last week may have cost him his wish for the Legislative session to end before his trip to China at the end of March.
Lawmakers voted Tuesday on a schedule that would extend the session well into the first week of April. They said they needed to take this past Thursday and Friday off to rework the midyear budget and allow House subcommittees to review their previous work on the fiscal year 2009 budget to figure out how to cut $310 million.
Conference committee meetings between House and Senate leaders on how to compromise on the midyear budget, which was reduced by $65 million, resumed this past week. No resolutions were announced on the biggest conflicts, which include funding for education and indigent defense.
Legislators will take the whole week of March 21 to 26 to further work on next year’s budget. The 35th of 40 days of session will fall on March 27. Which dates will be used for the last five days have yet to be decided.
GROUP DENOUNCES
HOUSE TAX CUTS
Analysts at the Georgia Budget and Policy Institute declared Thursday 18 measures passed by the House this session, including elimination of the car tag tax, would have a “devastating impact” on the state’s budget if made into law.
The institute predicted the cuts would result in a more than $100 million revenue loss this coming year and almost $800 million three years down the road, and it admonished leaders for considering such drastic cuts without planning to replace the revenue while the economy is in a downturn.
“We’re not going to grow our way out of it,” said GBPI Executive Director Alan Essig, on the hole left in the budget left by the cuts.
House leaders point to the elimination of the grocery tax 12 years ago that reduced revenues by 5 percent of the budget, a greater percentage than the property tax reform proposed this year, and how growth in the state’s population and economy absorbed the impact without having to raise another source of revenue.
Mr. Essig said the grocery tax was repealed over a period of three years, not the two years proposed in the tag tax elimination, and during much better economic times.
“This is a major tax cut over a much shorter period of time as we head into a recession,” he said.
The Budget and Policy Institute was one of the groups leading the battle against Speaker Glenn Richardson’s original tax reform plan to eliminate all property taxes and replace the revenue with an expanded sales tax. The institute cited gaps analysts found in the tax shift and claims that local governments wouldn’t be able to adequately control their own budgets. Although the cut was pared down to the elimination of the tag tax and the state’s quarter-mill on property tax, the think-tank still opposes the measure because there’s no revenue to replace the tax cut.
“This isn’t about the car tax,” Mr. Essig said. “This is a revenue issue.” He suggested an additional $1 tax on a pack of cigarettes could help offset the costs to the state.
The Senate has nine legislative days to work through the proposed constitutional amendments and some other tax cut bills by the House.
Gov. Sonny Perdue called the House’s tax cut plan “irresponsible,” but if the resolution passes the Senate, it will be up to Georgia voters, not the governor, to have the final say.
REVISED DOGFIGHTING
BILL PASSES SENATE
Stiffer penalties for dogfighting passed unanimously in the Senate on Wednesday and are expected to pass into law easily, which would end the four-year crusade by Sen. Chip Rogers, RWoodstock, to make Georgia less attractive for dogfighting.
The Senate has passed the tougher penalties three times now, but it took a House bill this year that downgraded the crime of dogfight spectator from a felony to a misdemeanor to clear House members.
Sen. Rogers said the Senate added a couple of changes to the House bill, including having it take effect as soon as the governor signs it and requiring anyone convicted of dogfighting to pay to spay or neuter any of the animals confiscated in the operation.
But he said the House sponsor has agreed to the changes, and he expects them to be approved by fellow House members and signed by Gov. Sonny Perdue this year.
Although Sen. Rogers began his fight against dogfighting in Georgia — ranked No. 49 in the nation by the Humane Society in dogfighting laws — long before former Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick pleaded guilty to involvement in it, he said the case “certainly didn’t hurt” getting the legislation moved.
“It made a big difference in people’s awareness of dogfighting around them,” Sen. Rogers said.
