An Independent Expenditure

I'm for Glenn Richardson for Speaker, just as all good Democrats should be. He is the BFF of Georgia Democrats. No one does more to make us look good. So, let's get behind him, help him out. What would we DO without him?

He even plans to revive the tax plan we skewered him with last session. What more could we ask?

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GMA Praises Porter

Again, Georgia Democrats may have no better friend than Glenn Richardson.

Today, the Georgia Municipal Association held a listening session in Macon, and according to those present, Executive Director Jim Higdon had glowing praise for Rep. Dubose Porter and the Democratic leadership in the House. Higdon said that Porter sought him out early in the session and pledged to hold the caucus together to oppose Richardson's now-infamous tax plan. And, Porter delivered. Higdon also praised Lt. Governor Casey Cagle and Rep. Richard Royal for their support. Had it passed, the GREAT Tax would have seriously undermined the control and authority of local governments. Higdon noted that the Speaker-for whom he showed no love-pushed the plan forward despite the absence of research to discover whether the plan was (a) needed and (b) effective.

This is the kind of critical, behind the scenes work Porter does frequently. He doesn’t showboat, but instead works quietly and effectively to build relationships with key individuals and organizations, like GMA. Politically, those are relationships that can pay big dividends for Democrats this fall. Though much has been written here and elsewhere about Richardson’s “GREAT” Tax Plan, it is worth remembering and truly remarkable that Democrats were able to cobble together a coalition and defeat the plan. Richardson ran the equivalent of well-financed, statewide campaign in support of the plan. We had virtually no money to spend opposing the plan, but we beat him anyway. That's one for the books.

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No Wonder They Need Their Guns...

The clock ran out on transportation, trauma care, tax reform and eduction, but, never fear, on the last day of the session, Georgia Republicans found time to pass a bill that allows folks to take their guns to dinner. No wonder. With the warring factions of the Georgia GOP aiming for each other's heads, Glenn and Casey probably think they need their guns at dinner. Petty personal power-grabs and self-promotion took center stage, once again, for Georgia Republicans who chose to fight with one another rather than fighting for the people they were elected to serve.

Seriously, I've yet to find someone who thinks the session was a success. Check this AJC article by James Salzer: the criticism transcends party lines. Unless you're a big time developer or an insurance company, there was little to celebrate in the session this year. Simple things, like having confidence that you'll have water for your morning shower, a reasonable commute time to work and access to trauma care if, God forbid, you have a wreck on the way, are not partisan issues. These are issues that matter to every Georgian, and sooner rather than later, the voters are going to toss out elected officials who'd rather fight with one another than offer solutions for the real problems we deal with every day. Had enough? Vote for a Democrat.

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Sine Die: Quote of the Day

The award goes to best friend of Democrats, Glenn Richardson, who, frustrated with Casey Cagle, declared:

"We need a new Lt. Gov. in Georgia."

Me, too, Glenn, a new DEMOCRATIC LT. GOV. He further encouraged all Georgians to rename the Tag Tax the "Cagle Birthday Tax." I suppose this is the close of the session and the opening of the Governor's race. Democrats have no better friend than Glenn Richardson.

Sine die and NO tax break for Georgians. Both plans failed. A very flawed water bill passed. A slightly improved TAD bill passed. The "Is that a gun in your pocket or are you just glad to see me" bill passed. You, too can carry your gun in all manner of public places. Good they stopped before they did any more damage.

Aren't there a finite number of laws that need to be passed? Half the problem is that-to feel productive-these folks think they have to think up new legislation. Less is more.

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Down in Flames

Richardson's tax scheme failed. Dems hung together. Couldn't have happened to a nicer guy. He can kiss the governor's office good-bye.

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174 Ways to Leave Your Lover

If you're in love with the mess the Georgia GOP is making, that is. Speaker Richardson's wants 174 brand new taxes, imposing a tax on virtually every service. As a small business owner, I can tell you that if this passes, not only will consumers pay the tax, but businesses will also incur a new layer of administrative costs associated with collecting, reporting and transmitting this money to the state. Guess who will end up covering that cost? You, that's who. And, if you have a service sector business, and you have a choice about locating in say, Georgia or Alabama, why would you choose to come to Georgia?

Of course, since we're experimenting, we want to choose schools as the first subject. What else is new? We need stable, adequate funding for our schools, and local communities shouldn't have to rely on a politician elected by a few thousand voters in some far away district to determine how much money is needed for our local schools.

And the state will have to develop a whole new enforcement department to make sure your lawn guy is collecting sales tax from you and then sending it to the state.

So, let's summarize: more taxes, more government, less stable funding, higher consumer cost, not business friendly.

Doesn't seem very conservative to me.

Here's my prediction. If this passes, it will be the demise of the Georgia GOP. They will be out of power within two cycles.

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Richardson Defies Georgia Right to Life

You've got to read this post. It looks like somewhere between the fried chicken and the peach cobbler, Glenn Richardson stood on the third rail for Georgia Republicans and "just said no" to Georgia Right to Life.

In response to a question about whether he would ensure that HB1 and HR536 got to the floor of the House for a vote. (These two measures, one a constitutional amendment defining life as beginning at the moment of fertilization, make abortion illegal and establish criminal penalties.) Richardson reportedly said that he has no intention of having a floor vote on either bill. He said that his concern is for living children.

I agree with him, but the trouble for Richardson is that Georgia Right to Life does not. They would consider every fertilized egg a living child. Somehow I anticipate a statement from the Speaker about how he has been misquoted and misunderstood.

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Richardson Skirts Barnes Appointee

When Georgia Democrats handed over control of the capitol, they also passed along the keys to the backrooms, rooms Speaker Richardson adeptly uses to his own personal advantage. In Glenn Richardson's world, there are rules for him, and then there are rules for everybody else, a philosophy evident in how his recent divorce was handled. Even for an uncontested divorce, normal, everyday Georgians have to file and wait 30 days for the divorce to be final. If they have minor children, they have to attend a parenting class.

And they don't get to hand-pick their judge, in this case Richardson's former business partner, Judge James Osborne, a Perdue appointee. By the way, had the Richardson used the front door rather than the back door of the court house, his divorce hearing would have been in front of Judge Tommy Beavers, a Barnes appointee.

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Death By 200 Taxes

Want to pay tax on your ATM fees? I mean ,really, the government wants to tax your ability to access your own money??? According to the DPG, Richardson's tax plan may be worse than anyone imagined. Hidden in HR 900 are more than 200 brand new taxes on everything from your wedding to your funeral.

Talk about a "death tax." Glenn may have written his own political obit.

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Shipping and Handling

On the not-so-GREAT Plan, now aimed at schools, my husband said:

"If we send tax dollars up the road to Atlanta, just for politicians to send them back down to us, we'd better be prepared to pay the shipping and handling."

That's right.

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Infighting Grounds Georgia GOP

Gov. Perdue, Lt. Gov. Cagle and Speaker Richardson planned a "fly around" last week as a show of unity prior to the session opening next week, only the plane never got off the ground. No, there were no mechanical problems with the plane-just an inability of Georgia's top leadership to agree on a agenda. Here's what the AJC had to say:

Things are so dicey that when state officials tried to organize a fly-around with Perdue, Cagle and Richardson this week, they were unsure if they'd be able to get together on an agenda.

Can't get together on an agenda? Are you kidding me? Drought plagued North Georgia and metro-Atlanta were on a day-to-day water watch, gridlock keeps Georgians in cars for hours, our schools struggle not to be last in the nation, tens of thousands of Georgians lack access to health care and our three top leaders can't agree on an agenda? These "leaders" are focused more on their own political futures than on the needs of Georgians.

Maybe we do need that prayer meeting.

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No Surprise

Part of the Speaker's tax plan will first be introduced in the senate. By targeting schools, Richardson has created and ally in Eric Johnson. We have our work cut out for us, but since this is a constitutional amendment, if senate democrats will hang together Richardson will not be able to get the numbers he needs to pass the bill. It's up to us.

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Hide Your Children and Your Silver: Richardson is at it Again

Glenn Richardson is perfectly happy to make your child into a lab rat. If the experiment doesn't work out so well, not to worry, he promises not to make your city and county follow suit. He won't be able to fix things for your child, but it's all for a good cause-shifting more of the tax burden to the middle class and giving Atlanta politicians control of funding for our neighborhood schools while creating a statewide voucher system for private schools. It's really a cool idea. Rich kids in private schools will get vouchers, and middle class families will pay for it.

Almost exactly as predicted, Glenn Richardson has narrowed his tax plan to target public funding of education, letting municipalities and counties off the hook-for now. He is also leaving medical services off the list of newly taxable items, thus possibly gutting well-funded opposition to the Glenntax. He is still imposing a sales tax on food and other services. Including private school tuition, Glenn?

Here's my favorite line from Galloway's article in today's AJC: "If there's not enough money we won't go on to the next level." Uhm, Glenn, how will you fix the mess you're about to create for schools? This is a constitutional amendment, actually, two constitutional amendments. You can't just twitter your little rat nose and change it back to the way it was.

This republican-led legislature has zero credibility on school funding. Why should we in Macon, for example, send our school tax money up the road to Atlanta and trust them to send it back? Where is the cost savings in that formula? I thought republicans were supposed to be all about local control, yet they now want to centralize education funding for all of Georgia in Atlanta. I don't know about you, but personally, I like the idea that the people who set the school budget live in my community and their children attend the public schools. There's a different kind of accountability that comes along with running into your constituents at the grocery or at the Little League game. I like the fact that they have to deal with all of us directly. They have to look us in the eye. Atlanta politicians, not so much.

I'm hearing that the cities and the counties are not yet abandoning the schools systems, but that the Georgia Chamber has gone quiet. This is going to be an expensive, difficult, high stakes fight, and I question whether the education lobby is up to the challenge. The agenda is to centralize education funding in Atlanta, so that a statewide voucher system is possible, and simultaneously reduce the tax burden for the richest Georgians.

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Georgia Democrats Set to Lead

Georgia democrats have a unique opportunity to lead this legislative session. Georgia is facing a severe drought-that threatens business. Georgia is facing a tax scheme-that threatens business. As Porter points out today in the AJC, Georgia democrats are in a unique position to be the voice of reason in an atmosphere of political extremism.

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Richardson Shows His Hand

It's no accident that Glenn Richardson has been long on rhetoric and short on details of his "GREAT" tax plan. This man may be a lot of things, but dumb is not on the list. When it comes to triangulation, he's about to make Bill Clinton looks like an amateur. I've thought for a long time that his sweeping tax proposal was a red herring. Now, Richardson is beginning to show his hand. Here's what I think Glenn Richardson is really up to.

• By waiting to finalize the plan, he is giving the opposition less time to organize an effective response. Smart.
• His "shotgun" approach-targeting every service industry and every local taxing authority-has created a lot of enemies and a whole lot of people who will be perfectly happy to trade silence for the opportunity to protect their own interest.
• In Macon last week, faced with increasing opposition from municipalities and county governments, Richardson began to show his hand.
• Now, Richardson says that he may just focus on taken tax authority away from school boards.
• That's both brilliant and evil. Brilliant because he's likely to win that battle. Evil because if he wins, public schools are DOA.
• That's fine with him. Richardson has repeatedly expressed his dislike for local boards of education, even questioning the value of their existence.
• By letting city and county governments off the hook, Richardson is betting they will stay out the his fight with school boards-and he's probably making a good bet. The "public schools lobby" will fight alone.
• Richardson and his cohorts have repeatedly spanked the "public schools lobby." We've lost battle after battle with the republican-led General Assembly. Think about it: we lost the 65% "solution" battle, the Charter Schools/Charter Systems battle, the SB 10 battle. Yep, they've pretty much beaten us at every turn.
• By focusing on school boards, he tosses red meat to republicans-Cagle and Perdue will have a hard time opposing this scaled-back plan. Why?
• Because the only way to implement a true state-wide voucher system is for all the education funding to be centralized in Atlanta.
• The goal is not to just disempower school boards, but to dismantle public schools.

This is going to be an expensive battle for public school advocates, one that we will not win unless we fight differently than we have in the past. An organized, well-funded plan is needed to defeat this legislation and keep the Glenntax off the 2008 ballot.

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Oh, Good. That's Just Peachy.

The AJC points out today that the tax proposal everyone loves to hate may benefit at least one group: lobbyists. And, they're right. Everybody and their brother will be hiring lobbyists to try to make sure that their niche is protected. The problem is, the poor and middle class Georgians the Speaker wishes to shift the tax burden to-they don't have lobbyists. Yet another reason they can expect to get the shaft in this debate. The only people paid to be there to protect their interests will be legislators. Like I said....

Seriously, though, could this horrid tax plan be a red herring? I've thought for some time that there was such fierce opposition to this tax plan that it surely had no chance of success. Even the Governor and the Lt. Governor have signaled their opposition. And, the experts say the numbers just don't work. But, here's what the proposal could do. It could keep the focus of the legislative session on Richardson, something he might want if he's going to run for governor. Also, with all the lobbyists busy fighting the good fight on this issue, any number of peculiarly heinous pieces of legislation could slip by without the scrutiny they deserve. After all, there are only so many issues you can fight at once. And, if the proposal fails to get the votes needed to be on the ballot next November, then Glenn gets to campaign on "they wouldn't even let you vote on it...they didn't trust voters to decide." Just peachy.

Oh, by the way, who are the lobbyists going to hire to keep lobbyist services from being taxable? And, all those perks they give legislators, will they be able to keep the tickets and trips off the tax books?

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Peake's Perks

Travis Fain has a very interesting piece in today's Telegraph, Analysis: Many fear large property owners will win big under GOP tax plan. He begins by pointing out that if the Speaker's plan passes, my Representative, " ...Allen Peake and his business partners can stop writing checks to Bibb County for more than $70,600 a year." At the end, Fain provides a very interesting breakdown of who owns what property, how much tax they now pay and what they would have to spend in services to break even with regard to their tax obligation. This is an excellent, well-researched piece.

Peake, in the article, actually had the nerve to compare what he will save with the savings of homeowners and car owners. I assume that he owns at least one each of those, too. When you want to know "why," just follow the money. The return of the landed gentry, indeed.

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Stick a Fork in Glenn's Tax

Over the vehement opposition of almost everyone except a few colleagues to whom he can toss plumb committee assignments-or not, Speaker Richardson continues to push his not-so-great tax on everything-a plan that's changing faster than Richardson's moods. But, his latest desperate addition is the death knell for this hair-brained proposal. Stick a fork in it. It's all over but the shouting.

On Thursday, Georgia State released a report on the plan that showing what Alan Essig with the Georgia Budget and Policy Institute told us in January: the plan simply won't produce enough revenue. It's way short-like billions short, unless Richardson includes sales tax on business-to-business services, which he now, predictably says he will do.

The problem is, the experts, like the folks at Georgia State or Georgia Budget and Policy, never even considered that Richardson would propose taxing business-to-business transactions because doing so makes zero economic sense. Essig said that taxing business-to-business transactions would hurt the state's economy and that taxes should be charged only when a product is sold to a consumer. This new wrinkle will add cost at every step of the production process-cost that will ultimately be passed on to consumers (read: "you and me").

So, not only will we be paying increased sales tax, including a brand spankin' new tax on services, the goods we purchase will cost more because of increased cost to business to produce the products. In short, the cost of everything goes up, even before the new sales tax is applied.

Don't spend too much time thinking about it. I'm sure that Richardson will continue his dog and pony show, but the Glenntax is D.O.A.

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Glenn Richardson's Great Big Sales Tax Break for Doctors

As you may know, Speaker of the Georgia House Glenn Richardson has been traveling the state touting his new tax plan that would replace property and ad valorem taxes with a sales tax on everything, including all services. To this point, Glenn's plan has been long on promises and short on crucial details including how it would actually work. Glenn is still working on that one.

Since the sales tax would apply to all services, including doctor's visits which were previously exempt, I was wondering how Glenn was going to sell that burden, both monetary and administrative, to physicians, a group that generally supports Republicans. Well, I don't have to wonder any further.

According to the Associated Press, Richardson, in addressing the Association of County Commissioners yesterday, was reported as saying that "health care is likely to face a very low tax, if any at all, under the plan".

Well, there's the carrot. Since doctors are generally going to be property owners, I can see them liking not having to pay property taxes. Now, Glenn is telling them that their practices will be saddled with no tax. Come on, we don't really think Glenn would consider taxing them a dime.

What has been unveiled of Glenn's plan has already been criticized since a sales tax on services would not make up the shortfall left by the loss of property tax revenues. Now, Glenn is playing partisan politics with who pays and who doesn't. This development should not be surprising since Glenn's fund paid for the development of this plan in the first place.

Reforming Georgia's tax system is an important undertaking that should be done by experts and as far away from the taint of partisan politics as possible. Glenn is finally showing his spots. His plan is a great big tax break for you if you are in the right profession and support him.

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Travis Fain is Being Funny

Get your Friday giggles here.

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