Comments on: 2009 Georgia General Assembly struggles with budget, gridlock

By: Diane

Diane — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 18:40:38 +0000

I have a feeling that Alan Essig, Director of Georgia Budget and Policy Institute, is telling the truth when he describes Georgia’s real problem as a revenue problem caused by a decade’s worth of tax cutting, business incentives, and exemptions. Anne’s comment about Jekyll seems right on the money and a prime example. Yet here we go with Cagle determined to run on a platform of “no new taxes,” which now just sounds uncreative and silly as we get the governor wanting to repeal homestead exemption and our water fees rising because we’re using less….etc. No matter what clever language they couch it in, we’re all soon going to pay more. Add a tax for hospitals? Who do you think is really going to pay for that in the end?

The Republicans as far as I can see are bankrupt of new ideas about how to manage this state in a responsible manner.

By: netdragon

netdragon — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 07:01:17 +0000

Commuter rail is a necessity for continued growth of the Atlanta area without sprawl. It is too bad that Perdue can’t see that long-term it will generate much more revenue in terms of increased property values.

By: Anne

Anne — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 22:54:03 +0000

Senate Minority Leader Robert Brown addresses the very real problem of giving incentives to “bring in business.” The Jekyll Island Authority has doled out millions of dollars of incentives to the developers rebuilding the hotels on Jekyll and private “partner” Linger Longer Jekyll. The incentives are so generous to developers that the income the JIA will receive from the development is paltry and cannot make a dent in Jekyll’s (yet to be substantiated) capital improvement needs without, you guessed it, more development!

Now the state wants to issue 50 million dollars in bonds to help “revitalize” Jekyll Island. Had the JIA board done their job as good stewards of the island and brokered contracts that were fair to BOTH sides the JIA would not need the bonds.

One wonders if the move to give the JIA the bonds is a way to take the heat off the whole development issue.

Let us all remember the legislative session of 2007 when the governor and leadership were falling all over themselves to make sure that condos would be allowed to be built on the island. Why? Because that is where the fat profits are for developers. And let us remember also that Joe Tanner and “Skin” Edge, lobbyists for Mercer Reynolds of Linger Longer were brokering the deal with the legislators…a lot of power for lobbyists…good results for Mercer Reynolds,Linger Longer (and Governor Perdue, perhaps.) Bad results for “the people’s park!”