DEL.ICIO.USLegislators share Georgians’ pain
Lawmakers struggle with other small-business owners but some say they’re not doing enough
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Sunday, March 08, 2009
Senate President Pro Tem Tommie Williams is a powerful man at the state Capitol, but the recession is hitting his South Georgia pine-straw firm like everybody else.
His business is off 40 percent and the Lyons Republican has had to lay off drivers.
Political Insider:
Gone fishing.
Gold Dome Live:
2009 Legislature Guide:
• Track bills & more!
• Issues | Players | Links
Related Links:
• More Georgia politics
• Metro News
• National News
Rep. Ben Harbin (R-Evans), who helps run a benefits consulting company when he’s not helping to write the state’s $20 billion budget, goes without paychecks many weeks so he can afford to keep his employees on the job.
“I can’t do that forever,” said Harbin, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee.
Rep. Mike Coan (R-Lawrenceville) had to get out of the construction business last year when customers started canceling jobs. Now he’s installing security cameras at stores, restaurants and other businesses when he can get away from the General Assembly.
For lawmakers this session, the recession is not some abstract event.
It is hitting home with force in very personal ways. And that personal contact with financial peril has fueled among some lawmakers a desire to do something, anything, to pump life into Georgia’s economy:
• Legislative leaders are pushing bills to give businesses sizable tax breaks for hiring unemployed Georgians and for keeping them in jobs.
• Gov. Sonny Perdue has proposed a $1.2 billion building program for the upcoming fiscal year, hoping to create about 20,000 jobs. Legislators are expected to add even more projects, and more borrowing.
• Rep. Ron Stephens (R-Savannah), chairman of the House Economic Development committee, is promoting legislation giving people a state income tax credit of up to $3,600 if they buy a home, in an effort to pump up the hard-hit real estate market.
• And state senators are backing more funding for tourism marketing in hopes of increasing the number of visitors and tourism-related jobs this summer.
“The bottom line is, what’s going to translate into real jobs for real Georgians?” Sen. Chip Pearson (R-Dawsonville) said.
But Allison Wall of the consumer group Georgia Watch doesn’t think lawmakers have made creating jobs and helping average Georgians a priority.
“You hear them talking the talk a lot more and at a much more fevered pitch, but I don’t see them walking the walk,” she said.
She noted that one of the first bills lawmakers seriously debated and approved didn’t address the recession but allows Georgia Power to charge customers early to pay for nuclear reactors. Supporters talked of the jobs the construction would create but that wasn’t the real issue, she said.
“We desperately in this economy really do need jobs and we need economic development, but those concepts are being exploited,” she said.
Still, lawmakers say they are seeking ways to stimulate the economy because they’ve seen so many jobs melt away during the recession.
Many, if not most, legislators own or manage businesses. They run law firms, real estate and insurance agencies, restaurants, construction businesses, pharmacies, retail shops.
In the past year, they’ve had to close businesses, lay off employees and, in some cases, they’ve lost contacts and jobs. The Department of Revenue recently reported that almost 10 percent of lawmakers have failed to pay taxes, although many of the tax problems predate the recession.
Some legislators are more grateful than ever for the $17,341 annual salary and $173 per day in expense money they receive because they have less business income coming in.
Sen. Emanuel Jones (D-Decatur), who has seen sales at his car dealership in Henry County dip 70 percent, said Georgians shouldn’t be surprised the recession is affecting legislators.
“We who are small-business owners feel the same pressures as everyone else,” Jones said.
Pearson, chairman of the Senate Economic Development committee, has been in housing development and related businesses for more than 20 years. His companies started to feel the downturn in 2006.
“Our customers were holding back, not starting new projects, not completing old ones,” he said. “We had to shut down pretty much 95 percent of our operation.”
Pearson worries about the impact of the housing downturn on home values, and in turn, the long-term finances of Georgians. “The underpinning of our society is shaken, to say the least,” said Pearson, who has worked with Stephens on the home buying tax credit bill. “Until you give someone a reason to buy, you are going to continue to see this decline in home values.”
Home builders aren’t the only ones feeling the pinch at the Capitol. Rep. Jill Chambers (R-Atlanta) and her husband, Albert, have for years run a wholesale art and mirrors business that sells to interior designers and other companies. Business was off 90 percent last year.
“I haven’t had a paycheck since February of last year and Albert hasn’t had one, probably, since March of last year,” she said. “Luckily, we were able to live off of our savings and retained earnings from the company.
Her company has survived, she said, because of generous landlords and vendors and by cutting staff and not buying new inventory.
Jones said sales have sagged at his Legacy Ford dealership in McDonough as the economy nose-dived. He has 40 employees in McDonough, about half as many as he did a few years ago.
“I’ve had to lay a lot of people off in order to save the store and keep it going,” he said.
He attributed part of the decline in sales to what’s happened in the Henry County area. The county used to be one of the fastest growing in America. “They used to issue 300, 350 building permits a month,” he said. “Last month they issued eight.”
Coan, who ran a commercial construction company, saw the recession coming before many Georgians. A year ago in December, he said, “My clients called me into a meeting, every one of them, and they said, ‘We’re not building.’
“From February until June, I had zero business.”
So he shifted gears and he said his new company, installing security equipment, is doing quite well, fed by the perception that crime is rising.
“If you want to work, you can’t be choosy,” Coan said.
The one man in the Legislature whose business has remained fairly constant: Rep. Chuck Sims (R-Ambrose), a funeral director.
Sims said he’s got the same number of clients, but people are spending less.
He said customers are buying less expensive caskets and having more graveside services to save money.
“We watch our inventory. We make sure what we bring in we’re going to sell,” he said.
Services »
