“My basic focus has been on creating private-sector jobs for Georgians. With your help and the involvement of our business community, we have done some great things. We have implemented real tax reform, such as eliminating sales tax on energy for manufacturing; we have essentially removed the marriage tax penalty on working Georgia couples; and we have abolished the annual birthday tax on vehicles. And each of these are part of a mosaic that led Site Selection Magazine to declare Georgia to be the No. 1 state in the nation in which to do business. According to Tax Foundation, Georgia has the lowest tax burden on its citizens of any state in the nation.”
“There is no such thing as free money, particularly when it comes from Washington and has costly strings attached. … As an example, the Affordable Care Act is anything but affordable and is costing our state $327 million dollars this year. You should be aware that, even without expanding, currently Medicaid and PeachCare cost every Georgian through federal and state taxes nearly $1,000 each year. Expansion would add 620,000 people to our taxpayer funded health plan, costing us even more. Now, the executive branch in Washington is trying to do what the courts deemed unconstitutional for Congress to do, but we will not allow ourselves to be coerced into expansion. Be assured, I am prepared to fight any intrusion into our rights as a state.”
“My focus on job creation is paying off. According to the federal department of labor, in the three years since I became governor, there have been approximately 217,000 new jobs added in our state, and major job announcements are almost a weekly occurrence. As a result, our state unemployment rate is the lowest it’s been in 5 years!”
“In order to fill the needs of a growing economy, we need more of our citizens to acquire education and skills beyond high school. To encourage this, I am asking you to create a new Zell Miller HOPE Grant for students in our technical college system. This grant will cover 100 percent of tuition for those who maintain a 3.5 grade point average.”
“We will spend almost $8 billion in next year’s budget on k-12 education. My proposal represents the largest single year increase in k-12 funding in seven years. That’s an addition of $547 million, an increase of over half a billion dollars in one year for our local school systems! It will enable us, in partnership with local school districts to restore instructional days, eliminate teacher furloughs and increase teacher salaries.”
“This year, we intend to roll out our third leg of our criminal justice reforms. … If an offender has been equipped to enter the workforce upon release, that person will stand a greater chance of avoiding relapse. If our reentry and reform efforts reduce our recidivism rate by 25 percent, we would see around 1,400 fewer crimes each year, with at least 1,100 fewer victims! This is a goal we should be able to achieve or exceed.”
Nathan Deal, a Republican, is governor of Georgia
Sharply divergent visions of Georgia’s future emerged between Republican Gov. Nathan Deal’s optimistic stay-the-course State of the State message and a blistering rebuttal by Democrat state Sen. Jason Carter. Read more and view a word cloud analysis of the two politicians’ speeches at MyAJC.com (subscription required): http://bit.ly/1dtoXGU
