Fresh Loaf

Essig

Last week, the Georgia General Assembly passed the Jobs, Opportunity and Business Success Act, a package of bills that offered tax cuts and credits for Georgia businesses. Proponents said the legislation would help spur the economy and create jobs. Alan Essig of the Georgia Budget and Policy Institute writes below that such cuts, while well-intentioned, hurt the state in the long run.

Well-intentioned as they may be, state legislators pushing hundreds of millions of dollars of business and special interest tax cuts in the name of job creation and economic stimulus are doing far more harm than good. Notwithstanding that Georgia is already one of the lowest tax states in the nation, research and experience proves that state tax cuts for business and other special interests have a negligible overall economic impact and are not a cost-effective method to stimulate Georgia’s economy and create jobs.

In this time of economic and fiscal crisis it is incumbent upon legislators to stop grandstanding, pandering, and misleading the public. While the state budget should prioritize limited state funds for state programs that have proven to have the most value, that same value-based approach should be used in making tax policy.

The economic crisis Georgia faces is a national problem, and misguided legislation calling for hundreds of millions of dollars in state tax cuts won’t stem the tide of the national recession; not only doesn’t it help, but it hurts.

(more…)

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Veteran Gold Dome reporter Tom Crawford hits the nail on the head:

When the billion-dollar tax break for corporations was being debated in the Senate in 2005, Casey Cagle, then a senator from Gainesville, averred, “It’s pro-jobs legislation. It will ensure we have jobs for the future.”

“It’s about jobs, jobs and jobs,” said Rep. Ron Stephens, R-Savannah.

Funny thing. All the new jobs that were supposedly going to be created from this gusher of business tax breaks don’t seem to have materialized.

We have continued to suffer higher than average unemployment since 2005, culminating last month when the jobless rate hit the highest level ever in Georgia at 9.3 percent. How could that be happening if all of those business tax cuts were creating so many jobs?

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Don’t get me wrong. For the entities who get them, tax cuts are a wonderful thing. I’d love to get a business tax break myself, but I can’t afford to hire lobbyists to demand one from the legislature.

Let’s be honest, however, about what these tax cuts are: a financial gift to whoever happens to receive them. Business tax breaks are not going to create jobs and it’s time that legislators quit using that as an excuse for passing them.

Worth a read.

(H/T to Andre at Peach Pundit)

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Remember how Michael Steele — the newly elected GOP Party chief, NOT the porn star (NSFW!) — promised his party would reach out to potential voters with an “off-the-hook” PR blitz? It would improve the Republican image — even with “one-armed midgets!”

Here’s the first blast! The GOP Problem Solver. Ask a question, and the GOP genie in the Internets will tell you the solution.

And what if this newfangled contraption’s answer “doesn’t make sense?”

“Then the terrorists win.”

(Hat tip to shorterexcerpts)

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Gov. Sonny Perdue’s plan for fixing a hemorrhaging state budget would cost Georgia homeowners upward of an extra 200 bucks a year — but it could end up costing Republicans even more.

With revenue collections now clogging the toilet, Perdue announced earlier this month that projections were indicating a $1.6 billion (yes, that’s a “B”) shortfall in the $20 billion current-year state budget. Part of his proposed remedy – eliminating the state Homeowner Tax Relief Grant – can be viewed as an affront to hardworking Georgia families struggling to make financial ends meet.

Or, if you’re a Democratic strategist, you can dance a jig and thank your nondenominational deity for yet another in a string of priceless political gimmes from a state Republican Party that seems determined to shoot itself in the foot with an AK-47.

But let’s back up a moment for a remedial course on Georgia taxes. The tax-relief grant in question was an initiative passed 10 years ago by then-Gov. Roy Barnes, under which the state reimburses cities, counties and school systems for a large chunk of local property-tax bills. The program has much the same effect as a homestead exemption, saving the typical taxpayer between $200 and $300 a year.

Read the rest if this article here.

(Photo by Joeff Davis)

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