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Friday, February 6, 2009
The Legislature reverts to slo-mo, waiting for stimulus package — and any more bad news
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The state Legislature today all but conceded the need to wait to see what President Barack Obama’s stimulus package will look like before lawmakers take a cleaver to the state budget.
The House and Senate agreed to stretch out the 40-day session by meeting three days a week, with the plan of finishing up on March 25 with five days to spare. Theoretically, the session could stretch until June.
We’re told that the Senate and Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle were the ones who needed to be brought to the table and agree to the slowdown.
So far, we’ve spotted three motivations at work:
— Cagle points to the dismal revenue figures that Gov. Sonny Perdue unveiled this week, first privately to state lawmakers — and publicly just a few minutes ago. State revenue for January is down 14 percent. (Even more frightening is the 117 percent drop in corporate income tax revenue.)
The figures raise the possibility that Perdue could lower revenue estimates again this spring, forcing more budget cuts. Pocketing a few days so that lawmakers can return to address those cuts makes sense, Cagle said.
— But the lieutenant governor refused to acknowledge that, with revenue dropping so drastically, the state may be dependent on cash contained in the stimulus package now under consideration in Congress.
Republicans in the House were less reluctant to draw the connection. “This will allow us enough flexibility to respond to what will or will not come from Washington,” House Majority Leader Jerry Keen said today, according to a blog maintained by Georgia Public Broadcasting.
The agreement was bipartisan, with Democrats in the House and Senate endorsing the slow-down. State Rep. Calvin Smyre (D-Columbus) was among those who advised Republicans to put the brakes on.
Smyre said that, even with his connections in Washington, he couldn’t say what might be contained in the still-amorphous stimulus package in Washington. But state lawmakers know that a harsh public reaction to cuts lies ahead of them. “You’re going to start seeing the faces of those you’re cutting,” the House Democratic caucus chairman said.
— A third reason for the slow-down is H.B. 143, which passed the Senate today — though it’s up for reconsideration on Tuesday.
The bill would preserve $428 million in property tax grants this year, but almost assuredly eliminate them the next. It takes a purely budget issue and gives it the status of law. And Perdue has demanded that the property tax grants end this year, not next.
Dick Pettys of InsiderAdvantage captured this exchange on the House floor last week, when H.B. 143 was being debated:
Glenn Richardson: “I have one little question I don’t think you addressed and so I want to ask it if this body approves this bill and if the Senate approves this bill, is there a mechanism we can sort of prompt and ask the governor to either veto or sign this bill while we’re still in Atlanta.”
Larry O’Neal: “I plan, Mr. Speaker, if it’s okay with the chair, to ask for immediate transmittal of this legislation to the governor. And he has then five days, as I understand it, to either veto or sign the bill.”
Richardson: “And while I’m sure we’ll ask for cooperation and I expect to get it, if we needed to we could immediately transmit this bill and the governor, if he were to decide not to sign it, would we have time to further act while we’re here?”
O’Neal: “Absolutely.”
The House passed the measure with a two-thirds, veto-proof vote.
Slowing down the pace of the session ensures that the House would have time to attempt an override of any gubernatorial veto — which would add significantly to the light and cheery atmosphere currently permeating the Capitol.
An override in the House would also pose an interesting situation for the lieutenant governor and the Senate. H.B. 143 passed the upper chamber today by a vote of 29-24-3. That’s not a veto-proof margin.
Cagle was against a series of vetoes pushed by the House last year. But that was then, and there is talk that Cagle and Perdue aren’t as close as they once were.
As the session stretching as far as June: Remember that fund-raising is barred while the Legislature is in session. This morning, the lieutenant governor said such talk has no place in the current economic climate.
But it wouldn’t be the first collision between public interest and self-interest — on behalf of not just Cagle, but several Republicans and Democrats looking at 2010 races.
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One bill would raise taxes, the other one would lower them
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Within the next few minutes, the state Senate will convene to take up two tax bills.
S.B. 83, sponsored by Majority Leader Chip Rogers of Woodstock, would double the statewide homestead exemption to $4,000.
H.B. 143 is double-edged. It would endorse immediate continuation of a homestead relief grant worth $200 to $300 to the average homeowner. But it also virtually assures that the grant disappears when property tax bills are handed out next August, resulting in an increase. This one has already passed the House.
The two are packaged to permit the argument that one cancels out the other. But the Association County Commissioners of Georgia offered up some math last night, after the bills were placed on the Friday calendar.
Says the ACCG:
Homeowners would see an increase of $200 to $300 because of the loss of the homestead grants. The homestead exemption doubling will result in a decrease of $50 to $75. So come August, 2009 property tax bills still will be $150 to $225 higher this year, the group argues.
“We understand that state legislators are trying to make up for not being able to fund the HTRG credit this year,” said ACCG Executive Director Jerry Griffin. “But, the savings that they are offering to homeowners will come directly out of local government budgets by increasing the property tax exemption. That shifts the financial burden of a state funded benefit to local governments who are also dealing with declining revenues.”
