Saturday, March 08, 2008

Legislature Scared of the Florida Gators

For once, the Georgia Republican-led legislature is on top of a real threat to our security and quality of life. They are not about to turn those gators loose on our highways-not unless our bulldogs are allowed to roam free in Florida. Never mind whether there's a trauma center available to treat the victims of either the dogs or the gators. Out legislators are focused on a critically important issue: tag reciprocity.

Yesterday a friend received an email from the Atlanta Seminole Club asking her to immediately lobby her State Senator and members of the Senate Public Safety Committee about HB 1165 which will ban or deny renewal of out of state school vanity plates if their states to not show Georgia "tag reciprocity." It seems this uproar began because the State of Florida has different and more burdensome requirements for the creation of a vanity plate than we do here in Georgia, and our legislators are fired up about the Florida Gator tags that have been popping up all over the state.


As I have made clear in previous posts, I bleed baby blue, but my husband went to law school at UGA and is a bulldog fan. I might even be willing to purchase a Tar Heel tag if it became available, but it boggles my mind that our legislators have wasted valuable time during the session when they should have been dealing with issues that truly impact the lives of us in Georgia over this issue. The school plates (I believe we also allow plates from Auburn and Clemson) are a VOLUNTARY TAX that people - let me say it again - pay VOLUNTARILY.


I feel certain that our beloved DAWGS will not loose a single football game just because we allow a little orange and blue gator on license plates. It might even inspire a few more Bulldog fans to pony up the extra for a UGA tag, just to make sure the 'Noles don't take over the roadway. But, regardless, why aren't we happy that these Gators, War Eagles, Tigers - and 'Noles - are lining up to PAY MORE TAXES?


Instead, our legislators look like sore losers who have returned one too many times from Jacksonville on the loosing end of the stick. At the least the Seminoles have a sense of humor because they noted in their lobbying request, "we are fighting this battle with Gators!"

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1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Seriously, it seems like in an election year there would be more important fish to fry. There is a couple of funny blogs about this same topic at www.gatordistrict.com