There is often a silver lining in political defeats, and Republicans had no trouble coming up with one Wednesday after Democrats killed House Speaker Glenn Richardson's much-ballyhooed plan to eliminate property taxes on cars.

Richardson's proposed constitutional amendment needed the support of 120 of 180 House members to pass. Most of the minority Democrats opposed it, and it only got 110 votes.

It was a huge legislative defeat for Republican Richardson, who has crusaded against property taxes for the past year. But afterward, Republicans were quick to promise that Democrats will have to answer to voters this fall for killing their bid to end car taxes.

"It's probably the greatest issue ever to run on," said House Majority Leader Jerry Keen (R-St. Simons Island).

House Speaker Pro-tem Mark Burkhalter (R-Alpharetta) added, "It's pretty clear. You're either for tax relief or you're not."

House Minority Leader DuBose Porter (D-Dublin) said it wasn't just about eliminating car taxes. But his explanation of the Democratic opposition will be hard to fit on a campaign bumper sticker.

"We had attempted to work on this because there was a lot of sentiment [among Democrats] for taking the ad valorem tax off cars," he told reporters.

"But there were other parts of this bill that would have been disastrous for local government."

He was talking about proposed limits on the amount of property tax revenue local governments could take in.

Richardson ran into stiff opposition last year when he first proposed eliminating all property taxes. He pledged to replace the revenue with a sales tax on more goods and services.

Cities, counties and school districts — which get much of their revenue from property taxes — accused Richardson of taking away their local authority and of trying to starve local government.

In hopes of placating some of the critics, Richardson first simplified his plan so that it only covered education property taxes. However, that didn't gain much support from either Republicans or Democrats.

So, the version that was defeated Wednesday eliminated only property taxes on cars, a pet project of Burkhalter's. The car assessment has been dubbed the "birthday tax" because it is due on the owners' birthday.

While many Democrats said they supported that tax cut, they objected to the limits on local governments.

Richardson wanted to limit the growth in revenue to the government inflation rate. If cities, counties or school boards wanted more, they would have had to ask voters. The plan also tacked a $10 fee onto all vehicles to pay for trauma health care.

The whole plan — if it had been approved by lawmakers — would have gone to voters this fall.

Richardson argued that limiting the growth of local government would help protect Georgians from skyrocketing taxes.

But local governments said the state was trying to impose an artificial limit on their spending.

Schools in particular worried that the government inflation rate wouldn't cover the cost of the teacher pay raises and benefits.

Local government officials lobbied lawmakers hard to kill the proposal, sending e-mails to lawmakers and pulling legislators out of the House chamber Wednesday to make their case.

Afterward, Georgia Municipal Association Executive Director Jim Higdon said, "By defeating this plan, legislators have indicated they understand and respect the value of allowing local communities to govern themselves."

Clint Mueller, a lobbyist for the Association County Commissioners of Georgia said, "These artificial tax caps have been tried in many other states and it's had disastrous effects on local governments."

Democrats argued Wednesday that Richardson's plan would have amounted to a tax shift. It would have cut state revenue, which in turn would have meant cuts in state funding for education and other programs, they said. That would have forced local governments to raise property taxes on homes to pay for services.

They said a similar thing has happened the past five years, as $1.5 billion in education spending cuts have led local school boards to raise property taxes.

"You can't strip education and then come back and say you want to help the taxpayers," said Rep. Al Williams (D-Midway), chairman of the Legislative Black Caucus. "Do you really want to help Georgians, or do you want a new wedge issue to put on the ballot and bring voters out?"

Republicans countered with what is likely to be a campaign theme this fall: that the $672 million a year Georgians would have saved though elimination of the car tax would have been the "largest tax cut in Georgia history."

After the vote, Richardson said, "After a year of hearing from Georgians about how needed tax reform is, I am disappointed that the Democrats ignored the wishes of our citizens. My sincere thanks goes out to those Democrats who listened to the taxpayers instead of their Democratic leadership.

"I will continue down the road we have started, and it is my hope that Georgians will make their wishes known to their representatives and to their local governments, who vehemently opposed this legislation.

"We Republicans are ready to give relief, but we cannot do it alone."

Burkhalter said he welcomes opponents trying to attack him for pushing a bill to limit growth in local government spending.

"Go ahead and beat us up for that. I'll take that licking every day of the week," he said.