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Tuesday, April 1, 2008
Hairpin turns on a sales tax for transportation
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
If you’re a captain of Georgia industry, you might be feeling a bit jerked around today.
Much earlier this session, the state’s top business leaders were herded into a photo op at the state Capitol as the chairmen of the House and Senate transportation committees swore eternal brotherhood.
They were this close, both lawmakers promised, to a compromise over a one-cent sales tax for transportation.
On Feb. 20, the Senate passed its version, S.R. 845, which would allow individual counties to levy an extra penny sales tax for transportation.
Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle expressed fulsome praise for the complicated legislation: “We have waited long enough to address our state’s transportation infrastructure needs and the solution we are putting before Georgia voters shows that we believe local control and flexibility is of the utmost importance.”
The House took its turn. Changes were made — counties would be grouped together into regions that could apply the sales tax to larger geographic areas. Metro Atlanta, for instance.
Speaker Glenn Richardson made a heckuva speech about the high social costs of ungodly commutes, and the House version sailed through with the necessary two-thirds support.
Negotiations began between three House members and three Senate members. In the usual course of things, one side declares its position to be one. The other stakes its claim at five. The deal is sealed somewhere in the neighborhood of three.
But on Monday, Senate negotiators picked none-of-the-above.
With two working days left in the session, the new Senate position takes transportation talks in another direction. It would simply ask November voters whether they would permit the General Assembly to “provide by general law for a local option sales and use tax for transportation.”
It is a philosophical question. Details would be worked out next year, by the Legislature.
“We must focus our efforts on transportation funding on presenting the voters with a straightforward and understandable ballot question. It does not matter whether the Legislature passes an amendment if it goes on to be rejected at the ballot box,” Cagle said in a statement afterwards. “Further, a failed attempt to address transportation funding this year will cripple future efforts to do so for years or decades. Georgia cannot afford a disaster of this magnitude.”
We’re told this unwieldy flow chart of how the tax might be applied persuaded Cagle to insist on a stripped-down version of the transportation package.
Even Senate leaders agree that it amounts to a rejection of their chamber’s own Feb. 20 position.
“If you get into all the details of this House version or the original Senate version — we’re both just as guilty — if you get into those details too much, first of all, I don’t think the average person’s going to understand,” said Senate Rules Chairman Don Balfour (R-Snellville).
But no one is saying why this decision was made on March 31 rather than Feb. 20.
Both Balfour and Senate Transportation Chairman Jeff Mullis (R-Chickamauga) say that Gov. Sonny Perdue — who opposes the sales tax for transportation — is pulling no long-distance strings. “I don’t believe we’re having any conversations with the governor on this right now,” Balfour said.
Both men also insist that negotiations over transportation aren’t tied to any other issues, such as the budget or tax cuts. And on this, barring evidence to the contrary, we must take their word.
If you’re looking for an unspoken reason for the Senate’s sudden shift on transportation, think on this:
On Monday, the Legislature was on the verge of asking Georgia voters to give constitutional approval to agencies of taxation larger than any city or county — which might rival state government when it comes to key policy decisions on transportation, such as rail.
On Tuesday, that question is much less likely to be presented to Georgia voters. And in the Senate version, sensitive questions that speak to the balance of real power in Georgia would remain with the Legislature.
The ultimate form of S.R. 845 is still up for grabs. “But it’s Tuesday,” Balfour explained.
In any case, lawmakers might want to wait before summoning any captains of industry to endorse their final product. A bad case of whiplash can take months to heal.
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Heckman on Linder: ‘He’s spent 15 years trying to pass a bad tax’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Doug Heckman, Iraq war veteran and Democratic candidate for Congress, isn’t hesitating.
He’s going straight at John Linder’s baby — the Fair Tax.
Heckman was on WGAU (1340AM) this morning. Here’s the sound clip sent in by host Tim Bryant.
Linder, you’ll recall, has written a pair of books with local radio gabber Neal Boortz on the shift to a consumption tax.
Said Heckman of the Republican incumbent:
”He’s kind of staked his last 15 years in Congress on the Fair Tax. In fact, I would defy any of his constituents to name something else that he’s kind of done in the last 15 years.
“So this Fair Tax, which is a national sales tax essentially — I believe that it’s very regressive and wrong for America.
“I believe in the assumption that the IRS is onerous and that we need to simplify the system greatly. There’s no question about that. The question is in how we do it.
“He introduced this in ’99. He’s got about the same amount of support now as he had in ’99. What else is he doing here to make America better? I don’t know.”
Heckman describes himself as a “moderate to conservative” Democrat. And he concedes that he’s running in Republican territory. “Yeah, the numbers are against me,” he said.
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Senate back-pedals from regional transportation tax
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
New material added at 12:30 p.m.
The state Senate appears to be backing away from a ballot measure that would permit groups of counties — such as metro Atlanta — to levy a one-cent sales tax for transportation.
S.R. 845 is now in conference committee. Late Monday, negotiators for the Senate proposed a stripped-down version, which would ask voters whether the General Assembly should be authorized to levy a sales tax for transportation — a power it already has.
Mike Kenn, with Georgians for Better Transportation, in a circle of puzzled transportation lobbyists on Tuesday. Elissa Eubanks/AJC
See the new Senate proposal here.
A second meeting will be held at 2 p.m. today in Room 216 of the state Capitol.
Jeff Mullis of Chickamauga, chairman of the Senate Transportation Committee, called the new Senate position “T-SPLOST Lite” and said it would allow the General Assembly to address the details — such as regional taxation zones — next year.
In a non-election year.
But what has transportation enthusiasts concerned is that the new Senate version does less than the one passed by that chamber weeks ago. Which means someone has developed cold feet, or that Gov. Sonny Perdue has made his influence felt — even though he’s a dozen time zones away.
Proponents of S.R. 845 were worried enough to put us in touch with Joe Leonard, chairman and CEO of AirTran — chairman of the transportation committee for the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce.
Leonard and other business leaders met with Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle on Monday to discuss the shift. Leonard wouldn’t divulge what was said, but it’s clear that he’s worried.
“I don’t know who’s driving it over in the Senate, but the conference meeting did not go well from our perspective,” he said. “To lose that momentum at this point would be very, very sad for people who live in Georgia. There’s such an explosive growth in Georgia, and the funding is very, very inadequate, as I think is apparent — certainly if you sit in Atlanta traffic.”
Leonard spoke of an opportunity on the verge of being lost.
“We think it’s very fair to the voters to be specific about what their voting on, and not have a constitutional amendment that’s very much watered down and very vague as to what people are voting on,” he said. “And who knows what the next Legislature is going to look like? Who knows what their attitude’s going to be?”
Leonard supposes that some lawmakers are taking Perdue’s objections to heart. “The governor’s very much against this, and I presume that’s having some affect,” he said.
What about Cagle? “It’s interesting, because we wouldn’t be where we are if Casey hadn’t provided us with incredible leadership to get us to where we are. To see it kind of falling the way it is — what happened yesterday was a bit disappointing. Hopefully, we can get that turned around,” Leonard said.
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Isakson taking flak from the right for pitching a tax credit for home buyers
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson, who made his fortune in Atlanta real estate, is apparently taking heat from fellow conservatives for his effort to ease the impact of the national housing debacle.
This is in The Hill, a D.C. newspaper that covers Congress:
Senate Republicans have coalesced around a counter-proposal of their own sponsored by Sens. Kit Bond (R-Mo.), Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) and Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.). Among other things, it would offer a $15,000 tax credit for the purchase of homes in or near foreclosure.
Conservative policy experts have slammed the Republican proposal, however, leaning on GOP lawmakers to back away from striking a deal with Senate Democrats this week.
The Heritage Foundation has called the plan “bad tax policy” and said it would “benefit homeowners at any income level who either irresponsibly borrowed all of their home equity or who took out a loan they could not repay but hoped to profit from by reselling the property in a rising market.”
According to The Hills, Isakson “said the tax credit, which he crafted, would not bail out borrowers but merely give incentives for buyers to purchase homes that would otherwise soon stand empty. This would keep home values from sinking and help all homeowners.”
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