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Sunday, January 21, 2007
But if you trust voters to set the tax rate, it might be hard to deny them a say on beer
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Some things rise to the level of a popular vote, says Gov. Sonny Perdue. Like the state flag. And some things don’t. Like when it’s permissible to buy a six-pack.
Perdue’s sense of history is somewhat skewed. Until he took office, we never had a referendum on a state flag. And until he was re-elected, local option referendums — allowing each community to decide for itself — were the way that Georgia lawmakers traditionally escaped the rock and hard place created by votes on distilled and fermented beverages.
But the governor is dead right about one thing. People do like to choose for themselves.
“When you ask people generally if they want the right to vote on anything — what kind of toilet tissue the state ought to use, or anything like that — they’ll typically say yes,” the governor told his radio listeners last week.
Georgia Republicans understand this, and have used the knowledge every other November to boost their numbers. In 2004, we had the referendum to place a ban on gay marriage in the state Constitution. In 2006, it was the constitutional amendment to hunt and fish.
Now, for Republicans, comes the real test on whether to trust voters. It has nothing to do with alcohol, homosexuality, or bass. Or toilet paper.
Last week, a group called Americans for Prosperity held a small press conference to call for a lid on taxation. Its members want increases in state spending to be limited to that caused by the pressures of inflation and population growth.
Any further increase in taxes would have to be approved by popular vote.
Do this, and the state income tax can be eliminated by 2021, said Jared Thomas, director of the anti-tax group’s Georgia chapter. Thomas acknowledges significant opposition within Republican ranks, even as the GOP has taken on the massive topic of tax reform.
“We’re not in the room deciding how this will be put down yet,” he said.
One of the disinclined is House Speaker Glenn Richardson. A mathematical formula, he has said in the past, is no substitute for human judgment, especially in times of crisis.
When one says that politicians can’t be trusted with the power to tax and spend, Richardson has reason to take it personally. The Republican’s power arises from the constitutional control the House of Representatives has over state finances — the power to tax and spend.
The speaker took no cheap shot at the anti-tax group last week. Some of its leaders are close friends.
But if they want to cut spending, Richardson said, they need to offer up specific items for the knife, rather than rely on distant theories. Fourteen years is a long time to wait. “I can’t think of a more opportune time than now,” Richardson said.
They’re out of power in Atlanta, but have a hotline to D.C.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Yet another reason why Democrats in the state Capitol shed few tears at last week’s dismissal of the ethics complaint, brought by the chairman of their own party, against House Speaker Glenn Richardson: It muddied a rare opportunity to exercise some real clout.
Early this month, the Republican-controlled state Legislature passed a resolution calling on the newly empowered Democratic Congress to fix a looming disaster — a $131 million hole in PeachCare, Georgia’s insurance program for 270,000 children of poor but working families, caused by a federal funding glitch.
Money could run out by March.
In a private gathering of Democrats, which has grown more intimate by the year, state Rep. Calvin Smyre (D-Columbus) pointed to the weakness of the plea. The measure suffered from a dearth of Democratic sponsors.
At the nation’s Capitol, no door that mattered would be opened by it.
Smyre knew of what he spoke. When it comes to Washington, the Columbus banker is one of the best-wired figures in Georgia. He’d just returned from the swearing-in of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
Word of Smyre’s comments made its way to the House GOP leadership. Smyre was invited to lead a bipartisan delegation of state lawmakers to Washington. Last Thursday, on the same day the dismissal of Richardson’s ethics complaint became public, the PeachCare delegation sat down with Pelosi’s chief of staff.
Several things were made clear in the meeting. First, 17 other states are in the same boat with Georgia, and the total cost of the repair is close to $1 billion. Resentful Democrats in Congress think their Republican predecessors had the opportunity to solve the difficult problem, but instead chose to punt.
And that will make it hard for Georgia, a thoroughly red state, to be heard.
Secondly, if more money for PeachCare does come Georgia’s way, the message from Congress is clear — Democrats in Georgia are to have a say in the future shape of the program, and how the money is spent.
For a minority party, that’s clout.
