Legislative leaders say they won’t raise taxes

One state lawmaker wants to impose a tax on strip club patrons.

Another plans to call for higher cigarette taxes. A third will propose putting the state’s four percent sales tax back on all groceries.

GEORGIA POLITICS

• Hopefuls for governor find big-time donors 
• Savannah River officials quit over squabble with Georgia 
• New state office considered to track stimulus money 

Political Insider:
Gone fishing.

Gold Dome Live:

• Inspector finds DNR gave ‘excessive’ raise to employee

2009 Legislature Guide:
• Track bills & more!
• Issues | Players | Links

Related Links:
• More Georgia politics
• Metro News
• National News

With the state facing a $2 billion to $2.5 billion shortfall this fiscal year and possibly worse financial news next year, lawmakers are searching for ways to fill gaps to avoid slashing education, public safety and health care programs in coming months. They are also looking for money for new programs.

But lawmakers hoping to raise extra revenue when the 2009 session starts Monday will run headlong into a conservative statehouse political climate that could doom their efforts. That’s especially true at a time in which some of they key Capitol players are thinking of running for governor, lieutenant governor or other higher offices in 2010.

“I’m a no-new-taxes kind of guy,” Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle, the Senate’s president and a likely candidate for governor in 2010, told reporters Monday. “I would be very reluctant to identify revenue enhancements to address the significant shortfall. The time is not for raising taxes, the time is for right-sizing state government.”

House Speaker Glenn Richardson (R-Hiram), has told House Republicans much the same thing.

House Ways & Means Vice Chairman Chuck Sims (R-Ambrose), who will propose putting the sales tax on groceries for two years, has gotten the message loud and clear.

“I’ve been told they are not going to raise taxes on anything,” Sims said.

But he plans to file his bill anyway, touting it as a way to eliminate the need for some of the most damaging budget cuts.

Georgia, like other states, has struggled to raise the money to provide funding for schools and health care as the economy, and tax collections, slowed. Lawmakers say Gov. Sonny Perdue plans to recommend $2.2 billion in spending cuts for the second half of the fiscal year, which ends June 30.

States across the country are proposing gas, cigarette and other tax increases to fill holes in their budgets.

Sims’ bill would tax groceries for the first time since the late 1990s. The food tax, which would raise a little under $1 billion a year, would end in mid-2011. Senior citizens and some other groups would be at least partially exempt.

Sims said the aim is to the get the state “over the hump” financially.

“What we’re trying to do is stop the bleeding,” Sims said. “I want to fund the stuff that needs to be funded in education and health care. My concern is that the cuts are going to be too drastic.”

Sen. Jack Murphy (R-Cumming), is considering filing legislation to charge strip-club patrons $3 to $5. The money would be funneled to services for young people who are caught up in child prostitution or other forms of sexual exploitation.

“I don’t think for anybody going into these adult clubs that $5 is going to make much difference,” Murphy said.

Rep. Ron Stephens (R-Savannah), plans to propose the second major cigarette tax increase since 2002. Perdue pushed through a 25-cents-a-pack increase in 2003 during the state’s last major fiscal crisis.

Stephens said an increase from 37 cents to $1 a pack would raise about $400 million a year.

Stephens and other advocates of raising the cigarette tax say it would help compensate for the money the state spends treating smokers with health problems.

“Unless we can raise the cigarette taxes now, we are going to increase taxes on consumers massively through increased health care costs,” Stephens said.