{"id":1227,"date":"2011-12-08T14:58:52","date_gmt":"2011-12-08T19:58:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2011\/12\/local-state-legislative-delegation-at-the-country-club.html"},"modified":"2011-12-08T14:58:52","modified_gmt":"2011-12-08T19:58:52","slug":"local-state-legislative-delegation-at-the-country-club","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2011\/12\/local-state-legislative-delegation-at-the-country-club.html","title":{"rendered":"Local state legislative delegation at the Country Club"},"content":{"rendered":"

At the State Legislative Luncheon at the Country Club yesterday,
\nsponsored by the Rotary Club and the Chamber of Commerce,
\nI found it more interesting what the legislators didn’t mention
\nthan what they did.<\/p>\n

\n
\nFrequent attendees told me the audience was much larger
\nthan in previous years, and one attributed that to the recent
\nschool consolidation referendum.
\nSitting side by side were Chamber Chair Tom Gooding and
\nFVCS President Sam Allen.<\/p>\n

\n
\nJeff Hanson introduced the legislators.
\nHe’s the Chair of the Chamber’s
\n
\nGovernment Affairs Council (GAC).<\/a>
\nHe said they are seeking more participants.
\nHm, they have an Energy and Environment Policy Committee that’s chaired
\nby someone from Georgia Power….<\/p>\n

\nTim Golden announced that the local delegation’s highest priority
\nwas to get $32 million for a Health Science Center for VSU.
\nVSU Interim President Dr. Levy was there, as was former president
\n
\n“Dr. Z” as Tim Golden called him.<\/p>\n

\nI was just talking to someone from SGMC in the food line about
\nhow it would be nice if the Industrial Authority would promote
\nhealthcare industries more.
\nIt’s good that the legislators are doing that,
\nalthough it’s not clear that there are not other things
\nthat should be even higher priority.<\/p>\n

\nTim Golden also wants to remove a sales tax<\/p>\n


\non energy for manufacturing.
\nHe said they tried to do that to save textile plants, but didn’t get it
\npassed, and those plants are all gone now.
\nHe noted that Ellis Black is on the House tax committee.<\/p>\n

\nI found it a bit dubious that they could have competed with China anyway.
\nSeems to me that getting rid of the so-called right to work laws would
\nhelp more with keeping local industry. Not that the Chamber would support
\nthat, since the leaflet they handed out with
\n
\nGAC policy positions<\/a> says the Chamber wants to strengthen those laws.<\/p>\n

\nTim Golden wants to promote Georgia timber and forest products,
\nmade in south Georgia.
\nWho doesn’t?<\/p>\n

\nHe also mentioned he’d been in the legislature 22 years.
\nThat’s a long time!<\/p>\n

\nHe prominently mentioned Franklin Roosevelt.
\nIf he keeps talking like that, people might think he’s a Democrat….<\/p>\n

\n
\nEllis Black talked about T-SPLOST.
\nHe said the state’s transportation infrastructure was in sad shape since
\nmoney to support it had been lacking for the past 20+ years.
\nHe harked back to when Herman Talmadge got a sales tax passed that
\nat least brought Georgia up to par with Alabama and Mississippi.
\nBut in recent years, many state legislators signed a pledge not to raise taxes,
\nand there’s an association threatening
\nto run primary challengers against anyone who does vote to raise taxes.
\nSo the legislature created the T-SPLOST idea to push the tax-raising
\ndecision off on the people.<\/p>\n

\nIronic, that the very people who voted for these no-tax legislators
\nare being pushed to vote for a tax.
\nA state-wide gas tax would do it better anyway than
\ntaxing old ladies buying prescriptions and the like.
\nSpeaking of irony, another newly-minted Republican praising a Democrat,
\nHerman Talmadge.<\/p>\n

\nEllis Black also mentioned that one of the reasons for the T-SPLOST
\nregions was so Atlanta could vote to raise money for public transportation
\ninstead of building more freeways.
\nAlso that counties around Lowndes are increasingly discontented with
\nLowndes bragging about SPLOST revenues that mostly come
\nfrom shoppers from outside Lowndes County.
\nSee above about gas tax.
\nPlus a gas tax would promote changing from fossil fuels to renewable energy.<\/p>\n

\nNow Ellis Black didn’t say it this way, but it sounds to me like
\nhe referred to a bunch of state legislators who value their oath to
\nGrover Norquist the First more than they value their oath of office.
\nMaybe the people of Georgia need
\nto elect some representatives who will serve the people.<\/p>\n

\n
\nAmy Carter was pleased to announce that for the first fiscal full year
\nin five years the state had positive monthly revenues for 2011.
\nPlus that while five out of the eight AAA rated states are possibly
\nfacing downgrade, Georgia is one of the three that is not.
\nHowever, federal stimulus funding has ended, and the feds are cutting
\nstate funding in other ways, for a shortfall of $1 billion,
\nso the state has to deal with that, too, which they plan to do through
\na 2% budget cut.<\/p>\n

\nShe seemed to say Georgians were healthier.
\nI hope so, so maybe the state can move up from the bottom on health.<\/p>\n

\nAmy Carter is the governor’s legislative floor leader.
\nShe got that assignment in her third term, after she switched parties
\nafter being elected.<\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/a>
\nShe mentioned that people can sign up for Lowndes County’s Bird Supper,
\n
\nwhich the VDT says has been held in Atlanta for over 50 years.<\/a>
\nThe local legislative delegation gets other legislators to show up
\nfor supper so people from here can go talk to them.
\nShe said people could sign up at “that big building downtown”,
\nor, as most of us call it, the county palace.<\/p>\n

\n
\nJason Shaw, the only newly-elected legislator
\n(and the only one who didn’t switch parties after he was elected),
\nsaid he was focussing on regulation for copper theft,
\nand admitted that not all regulation is bad.<\/p>\n

\n
\nAt the end,
\nTim Golden received an award from Kyle Jackson
\non behalf of the
\n
\nNational Federation of Independent Business.<\/a><\/p>\n

\nSo what didn’t they mention?<\/p>\n

\nJason Shaw mentioned unemployment, but not a word about HB 87
\ncausing crops to rot in the ground due to scaring off migrant workers,
\nwhile enriching CCA through its private prisons.<\/p>\n

\nNot a word from any of the legislators
\nabout getting fast Internet access everywhere in Georgia,
\nespecially in rural south Georgia,
\nto promote knowledge-based business.
\nThey seemed mostly fixated on 20th century solutions
\nwhen we face 21st century problems and opportunities.<\/p>\n

\nNot a word about renewable energy,
\neven though the Chamber, to its credit, has an admirable paragraph
\nabout that at the end of the GAC policy statement:<\/p>\n

\n<\/p>\n