More on the Dumbest Idea in Georgia
Posted On Friday, September 14, 2007 at at 9:52 AM by Dan
The AJC today is reporting that Gov Perdue and speaker Richardson sat down together. It wasn't a personal meeting, more of a Republican coffee klatch to talk about taxes. Perdue isn't endorsing Richardson's stupid idea to eliminate property, income and ad valoreum taxes. However, Perdue isn't saying he hates it either. Rather, in the political non-speak that is standard English for elected officials, he says he has strong doubts.
The governor wants another bad idea, to cut personal and corporate income taxes and to eliminate income taxes for some senior citizens. To be clear, he wants to give rich people and corporations a free ride. The senior citizen tax cut he proposed during his campaign applies to those making more than $120,000 per year. He gets credit for rejecting the property tax rebate, but not for silly pandering schemes.
At yesterday's Poor People's Day meeting, Peter Armstrong from the Georgia Budget & Policy Institute gave a short presentation on tax reform. Here's the deal. The Georgia budget is presently $20 billion. Richardson's proposal would cut the budget by $8 billion. Now, if the Georgia budget was $8 billion too big, this would be fine. But right now Georgia isn't doing near enough of what it needs to do (i.e. Grady, MARTA, water, my road, etc.). Richardson proposes a state sales tax to make up the difference. Trouble is sales taxes hit workers a lot harder than they do rich folk. Right off the bat, anyone not a CEO or rich lawyer is going to get smacked. Worse, Richardson will have to raise the sales tax. Armstrong estimates sales taxes would have to be raised by 5% to make up the difference. Richardson will also have to the exemptions. Now we're looking at paying taxes on EVERY transaction. Remember when Georgians paid taxes on groceries? There's a word for a situation like that: Alabama.
The GBPI will be having a January conference on poverty. Check out their website for future details. In the meantime, the next Poor People's Day meeting is September 27 at 9 Gammon Ave., Atlanta 30315. Lunch is at 12:30 and the meeting starts at 1pm. Call 404.622.7778 for more information.
