Transportation
The Legislature in 2011 stubbornly refused to act on model legislation to create 21st-century governance for the Atlanta region’s multiple transit agencies. They nixed a model that’s proved its worth elsewhere.
What bubbled up instead this year was more of the tired same — a proposal to move transit oversight to a state-controlled board. That might make sense in a state that contributes meaningfully to urban transit. Georgia doesn’t. This idea, too, went nowhere. Lawmakers also stonewalled a measure to extend MARTA’s relief from an important funding restriction, which is to end next year.
Tax reform
The authors of a 2011 state tax reform proposal beseeched lawmakers to consider their work as a unified whole and not tear off individual strategies favored by special interests, or which might prove popular with voters. So, what happened? The piecemeal route.
The disparate tactics that emerged are not necessarily bad ones. Eliminating the sales tax for energy used in manufacturing should help keep Georgia competitive for business, for example. Yet we’re still far from enacting comprehensive tax reform. Having to wait for another year is consideration of state income tax rates and other sources of revenue that should be discussed as part of one package. Lawmakers should end the stall tactics next year.
Unemployment insurance
Given the $761 million Georgia owes the federal government for loans to cover unemployment benefit payments that swelled during the Great Recession, it’s no surprise the General Assembly had to come up with a solution this year. The end result — ginning up the payments through a combination of benefit cuts and modest increases in employer taxes — is about what was expected, given election-year desires to be seen as not coddling the unemployed. The split solution is better than covering even more of the repayment at the expense of Georgia’s jobless citizens.
Justice Reform
In a positive move, the General Assembly did adopt the criminal justice system reform package that Gov. Nathan Deal championed. It should keep behind bars those who have earned such treatment and do a better job at reforming offenders who are good candidates for redemption. Doing both will save money and may keep Georgia safer.
Ethics
Finally, it’s unbelievable that the Legislature stonewalled ethics reform bills bravely advanced by a few principled lawmakers, who found their desire for change greeted with scorn.
Given that ethics changes were championed by groups ranging from tea party affiliates to the League of Women Voters of Georgia, tone-deaf legislators clinging to the status quo might do well to look often over their shoulders as primary season approaches. Voters may not forget their dissing at the Gold Dome. Nor should they.
Andre Jackson, for the Editorial Board.
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