On the Record: With Georgia Senate Minority Leader Robert Brown

Q: How do you fix the budget?

A: I’m pleased to hear that we are not going to raid the Hope scholarship. ... Where we get into education, it seems that we are continuing to cut school nutrition, the teachers on furlough. All of these things I think are just hindering us as a state. It’s directly tied to our job development, economic development, and I think we are crippling ourselves for the future when we continue to cut education.

Q: Any specific measures?

A: I think I would look for ways to fill those gaps. One of the ways that could be done is to look at a lot of these special-interest exemptions that we’ve given to people, corporations especially. ... That has not to my knowledge been any real analysis as to what benefit we really get from giving all of these exemptions, and it’s clear that the money is disappearing, and that is one way to recapture some of the money. ... We talk about attracting [foreign] businesses to Georgia, and we give exemptions to corporations, and I continually hear existing businesses in Georgia talk about if we could expand and do more things if we got some of that money as well.

Q: What about the sales tax exemption on food?

A: I would not be in favor of rolling that back.

Q: How would Democrats do things differently?

A: Leadership has not been responsible in that they have sacrificed the real important things in the budget on the altar of no taxes, smaller government. And we think you can accomplish that with reasonable approaches to taxation — not overtaxing people. But there is a balance that can be had with looking at what your priorities are. What they have done is bite by bite cut back public schools, and I think that is irresponsible leadership to move in a direction that’s really going to hurt public schools. And if there’s anything that they’ve done that’s totally irresponsible is the vouchers they’ve gone toward. And they are now advocating vouchers for our military families and foster children. And that sounds like something that’s reasonable to some people. But if you look at it in the totality, what they are doing is bite by bite you get the camel’s nose under the tent with the special needs children and then you come back with the military families, you come back with somebody else and then you just continually do that and finally you scale back support for public schools.

Q: Should all Democrats have taken furlough days?

A: In hindsight, I think it would have been better to advocate for everybody to do that. But at the end of the day, we need to understand that may make us feel good, but I think it would be more important for us to find ways to keep everybody from having to take furloughs.

Q: Ethics reform?

A: If you want to ban gifts completely, that would be fine with me. There are some other issues that have to do with transfer of funds, and quite frankly, we’ve had both parties that have done some of that, but I think that is something we can eliminate and we can live with. By transfer of funds, I mean supporting other candidates with money. That’s something that both parties have done, and I think that is something we can eliminate ... and gifts, we can go down to zero.

Q: Is there a different atmosphere at the Capitol?

A: I don’t know that there is a significant difference, in the sense that I still see people going to lunch. I still see people paying for group meals and that kind of thing. I suspect people will be more precise and careful about documentation in what they would do, but I don’t know there is a sea change.

Q: Ethics enforcement?

A: It’s just like having a speed limit on the highway; if nobody enforces it ... people just run like they want to run. So now, to the extent that there is a lack of enforcement, there are some things that ... it’s very difficult to enforce. For example, if somebody goes to lunch or goes to dinner and on that same day there’s a bill, how do you say that dinner influenced them? I don’t think the lobbyist is going to say it influenced them. I don’t think the person who participated in the dinner is going to say it influenced them. So then it comes back to if you eliminate the dinner, will there be something else?

On the record: A weekly event where reporters and editors talk to leaders about key issues for Georgians.

Excerpts from the conversation also can be heard on News/Talk 750 WSB.