Handpicked business execs sway legislation

Dean Alford, Allied Energy Services

Billy Blanchard, Columbus Bank & Trust

Paul Bowers, Georgia Power

Doug Carter, Don Carter Realty

Steve Green, Stephen Green Properties

Ernest Greer, Greenberg Traurig

Allen Gudenrath, Smith Barney

Randall Hatcher, MAU

Robbo Hatcher, H2 Capital

Donna Hyland, Children’s Health Care

Raymond King, Zoo Atlanta

Wesley Langdale, Langdale Forest Products

Craig Lesser, Pendleton Consulting Group

Aaron McWhorter, North Georgia Turf

Allen Rice, Savannah Luggage Works

Charles Tarbutton, Sandersville Railroad

Carol Tome, Home Depot

Philip Tomlinson, TSYS

John Watson, TPA Realty Services

Paul Wood, Georgia EMC

Note: The Competitive Initiative task force also includes 14 state and municipal officials as ex-officio members

The ideas started flying Wednesday in a cramped conference room at a north Georgia college. More state funding for tourism marketing. New incentives for downtown development. Another round of tax breaks for manufacturing firms.

Yet the influential men and women pondering those ideas for energizing the state economy aren’t lawmakers or elected officials. They are corporate executives, well-connected attorneys and real estate moguls who will have tremendous sway over the tax proposals headed to the Legislature this winter.

Gov. Nathan Deal, who tapped the “competitiveness task force,” sees it as a way to protect taxpayers from highly-politicized tax proposals in an election year that promises to be rife with them. He also views the group, which convened in Dahlonega for pre-legislative discussions, as a way to bring private sector expertise into the political process.

“They are the ones who are closest to the real issues and they understand how taxes impact businesses in our state,” Deal said in a Wednesday interview. “It’s helpful for members of the General Assembly to hear their opinions. They’re not bound by the opinions. But I think it’s important to have a group of outside individuals express their opinoins and give them advice.”

Critics worry that the panel's 21 members — many of them donors to the governor — are granted too much power over a process that should be up to elected lawmakers. They note that the governor invoked the panel when he vetoed tax legislation after the last session, and fear it will be used selectively to back favored legislation and ignore other proposals.

Alan Essig, who heads the left-leaning Georgia Budget and Policy Institute, said he worries that a "group of unelected business leaders is charged with recommending whether Georgia businesses should continue to get big tax breaks." He called the members "inherently biased" toward breaks for their industries.

“It’s totally appropriate for the business community to advocate for tax breaks by themselves,” he said. “The problem is when they are the judge and jury. And it seems the governor has given them the perceived power in making tax cuts. It’s the fox guarding the henhouse.”

The panel was started in 2011. Its findings were used to back 15 pieces of legislation in the 2012 session, including Deal's push to repeal the state sales tax on energy used in manufacturing. The governor credited that break for attracting carpet expansions earlier this year, and said it could help land more business from overseas investors.

Yet concerns arose about its influence after Deal's surprising decision in May to veto a bill that would have reinstated sales tax exemptions for food banks and health centers because it hadn't been vetted by the panel. That move came days after he signed a law that extended a sales tax break on Gulfstream aircraft parts that hadn't been scrutinized by the group.

The food bank tax break is back before the panel this time around. So are plans to give video game designers, manufacturing plants and tourism developers new incentives. And the list will only grow as legislators eye a state budget surplus that could top $600 million.

Chris Clark, president of the Georgia Chamber of Commerce, said the panel plans to vet legislation at Deal’s request, but also is looking to put forward new ideas.

“I told an economic developer here this morning, ‘If there’s anything you think should be on the table, now is your chance,’” he said.

The group includes some of Georgia’s best-known business leaders, including Georgia Power president Paul Bowers and Home Depot executive Carol Tome. There are also well-connected lawyers, real estate developers, financiers and tourism officials. All told, the members have given more than $65,000 to Deal’s election campaigns, and two of them are well-connected lobbyists.

“They represent a very narrow sector of Georgia,” said state Sen. Vincent Fort, the chamber’s No. 2 Democrat. “And I worry they won’t look out for the interests of middle class families in Georgia.”

State officials, though, say the group was designed to include leaders from an array of industries and different parts of the state. John Watson, a commercial real estate developer and registered lobbyist who is on the panel, said that ensures a "chorus of trusted voices that have a meaningful perspective about Georgia's posture is heard."

“If you want to hold truth to power about how Georgia really stacks up,” Watson said, “then you need a group like this that really has the capacity to do so.”