Lawmakers filing into the Gold Dome on Monday will find before them once again a heavy punch list of important matters needing resolution.
Doing that well requires casting forth a forward-thinking vision for Georgia — and acting quickly on it. The opposite of that earnest work would be more of the half-hearted punting and gamesmanship designed to appease restive voters, not solve our biggest problems.
Let’s get beyond that in this bellwether year for Georgia and its capital city. We need bold, broad thinking as we endure a still-sluggish economy that’s long overdue for repair, rebuilding and rebirth.
Georgians agreed in a new AJC poll that’s detailed elsewhere in today’s newspaper. In our statewide poll, 39 percent of voters said that jobs and the economy were the most important things for the state Legislature to act on this year. That’s nearly three times the percentage of the next-highest category.
Which makes sense, given Georgia’s 9.9 percent unemployment rate. Put bluntly, we need more work for our state’s workers. State government can best help by acting to inspire increased confidence among businesspeople and investors. That will lead to more jobs in Georgia. Toward that end, we anxiously await details expected this week from Gov. Nathan Deal’s Georgia Competitiveness Initiative. Georgia desperately needs a smart, comprehensive plan that ties together neatly the various public-sector elements that can help, or hinder, economic growth. Disjointed, scattershot tactics have too often failed us.
Taxes are a good example. We’re a low-tax state, and that’s an advantage. But it’s not nearly enough. Our tax code is inefficient and hindered by far too many narrowly drawn exemptions that earned political favor without necessarily proving their worth.
Georgia needs a broader, simpler, more-equitable tax code that reflects 21st-century economic realities. That’s the opposite of the tinkering, piecemeal approach popular with lawmakers.
Tax reform should be achieved in a comprehensive, systematic manner. There’s already a solid template at hand in the final report of the 2010 Special Council on Tax Reform and Fairness for Georgians. Lawmakers should act on it this year, after failing to do so in 2011. And they should heed council chair A.D. Frazier’s introductory letter, which asked “that the Legislature give a fair hearing to our recommendations and consider them as an integrated set of policy recommendations.”
Job creation is affected by much more than taxes, too. Transportation is a big factor. Products and people alike need to move much more efficiently around Atlanta and across the state. Transportation inefficiency fuels economic disparity.
This year, voters will decide on regional transportation special purpose local option sales taxes that would fund work in a state that ranks 49th in such tasks.
Legislators should resist skittish urges to tinker further with the T-SPLOST legislation. That would likely only worsen matters in a state that recently saw the meltdown of the much-ballyhooed concept of expanded HOT lanes, a cornerstone of our transportation strategy.
One exception is that legislators need to decide quickly on an umbrella agency to coordinate this region’s transit systems. Atlanta officials have proposed draft legislation, which gives lawmakers a sound starting point.
Transportation is huge here, but even issues seemingly further removed from direct economic activity also have a large impact on our state’s success or failure.
Businesses consistently say they need a workforce that’s well-educated and prepared to continually learn.
That takes an adequately funded education system that makes the best use of taxpayer dollars. An Education Finance Study Commission is tackling this politically thorny work and final results aren’t expected this year. Even so, lawmakers should keep top of mind the direct effect of education on economic development as budgets are finalized.
Many other issues critical to recovery are affected by the Legislature’s actions. Georgia is at a turning point, and we need the General Assembly to steer wisely if 2012 is to be a year of renewal.
Andre Jackson, for the Editorial Board
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