Tag Archives: Jim Galloway

Partisan bickering over Georgia’s transportation tax illustrates why it won’t solve anything

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Jim Galloway points out in his Political Insider column for the AJC that the campaign to squeeze more money from Georgia’s taxpayers has hit another speedbump:

At the state Capitol, next year’s statewide round of regional sales tax votes is again in trouble.

At issue is legislation backed by Gov. Nathan Deal to shift the day of the vote from the July primary, when the electorate is likely to be overwhelmingly Republican, to the November general election.

Tea-party Republicans against the sales tax are opposed to changing the date, accusing supporters of trolling for voters churned out by President Barack Obama’s re-election bid. In a private session with Republican lawmakers from metro Atlanta, Deal this week quietly argued that presenting a tax initiative before the largest audience possible is in keeping with GOP principles, according to people who were in the room.

In addition to Deal’s backing, another good sign for supporters is that the legislation to change the date of the vote is sponsored by House Speaker pro tem Jan Jones of Alpharetta — the most powerful metro Atlanta lawmaker in the Legislature. So the Republican side of the transit sales tax vote may be close, but it’s likely to hold together.

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Democrats in Fulton and DeKalb counties have supported next year’s transit sales tax vote — but only reluctantly, given that their voters have long been paying an extra penny sales tax to fund MARTA.

With tea party Republicans opposing the issue from the right, black lawmakers will be needed to make up the difference, if the date to shift the transit vote is to succeed.

State Sen. Emanuel Jones, D-Decatur, chairman of the Legislative Black Caucus, said his members are angry enough over the Senate map to lock down on the transit issue. “I think our caucus would be inclined not to cooperate,” Jones said.

It is sad to see such an important issue bogged down in partisan politics but it is completely predictable. Georgia’s transportation problem isn’t caused by a lack of money it is caused by an incompetent political class. As I wrote in this post last year:

The political class say they could fix the problem if they only had more money. What the political class doesn’t understand is that the voters don’t blame infrastructure needs on a lack of money, the voters place the blame on the political class. Taxes in Georgia are the 16th highest in all of the United States while transportation spending is 49th out 50. See the problem?

But Georgia’s political class won’t accept the fact that they have been the problem. Instead, the politicians and lobbyists  sat down together and once again hammered out an agreement acceptable to the politicans and lobbyists.  And once again their solution is to raise taxes… billions and billions of dollars in taxes. That solution must have sounded awfully good in their echo chamber because a few months ago the political class unveiled this genius idea to great fanfair and they patted themselves on the back so hard that Atlanta’s chiropractors must have made a fortune.

But the people that will pay for this enormous tax increase are not impressed, they are hurting. They face 10% unemployment while the other 90% are still unsure of the future. More than 12,000 Georgia homes were foreclosed in July. IRA accounts and home prices are going down while grocery and gasoline prices are going up. To make matters worse their federal income taxes are going up in a few weeks and they will have even less money to spend. Georgia voters are hurting and they find it offensive that political insiders have decided taxpayers need to pay billions of dollars more to fund transportation improvements. While transportation improvements might bring jobs to Georgia in a decade or so, the state’s taxpayers would have to cough up billions of dollars that could have gone to pay their mortgage or put food on the table in the meantime.

The tax increase being pushed to solve Georgia’s very real transportation problem won’t solve anything because lack of money isn’t the problem. Lack of effective leadership is.

The decentralization of power is a good thing

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Jim Galloway has another insightful column up at the AJC’s Political Insider blog. He uses the recent advance of the Sunday Alcohol Sales bill to point out how the Tea Party movement has caused a decentralization of political power in Georgia.

“Republicans often talk of the chill that last November’s tea party-driven vote sent up President Barack Obama’s spine. Only rarely do they acknowledge that those same ballots signaled a shift to a more libertarian brand of conservatism within the GOP.”

“It’s a bill about local control,” Bulloch said. And we’re all about limited government these days, because the pitchforks – once held by followers of Ralph Reed and Pat Robertson — are now in the hands of tea partyers.”

I for one would welcome this decentralization of power. One of the consequences of concentrating money and power in a central location is that it makes it much easier for lobbyists to influence where that money ends up being spent. The farther the decision making process gets from the taxpayer the less chance there is that the money will actually be spent to benefit that taxpayer. The supporters of turning North Fulton into Milton County are using this same justification for local control.

With that in mind my favorite quote from Galloway’s column is by the head of the Georgia Christian Coalition, Jerry Luquire, as he explained why he didn’t bother to attend the hearings on Sunday alcohol sales,

“I don’t show up at the Capitol much anymore because that’s not where the power is anymore. The power is among the people”.

I don’t care if you support the Tea Party or not, I would hope we can agree that the power being back with the people is a good thing.

If you are interested in Georgia politics then the Political Insider is a must read and you can find the whole article here.

View from a Political Outsider – Georgia’s Transportation Tax

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Jim Galloway’s recent Political Insider column in the Atlanta Journal discusses Georgia’s recently rejected “trauma tax” and how that rejection will impact the state’s proposed sales tax increase in 2012. I respect Mr. Galloway. His Political Insider column provides a great deal of insight into the world of Georgia politics… but being an insider has its price.

In the case of tax increases Mr. Galloway’s insider viewpoint prevent hims from seeing the issue from the perspective of the political outsider (otherwise known as a typical voter). As a political outsider perhaps I can help.

Right now there is a failure to communicate in Georgia. The communication failure stems from the fact that too many elected officials aren’t listening to the voters. Instead of listening to voters politicians spend their time listening to each other along with the bureaucrats and lobbyists that surround them. After talking amongst themselves this political class hammers out a mutually acceptable solution to whatever the perceived problem is and unveils it to the public. Of course the solution always involves confiscating millions of dollars from Georgia’s taxpayers so the taxpayers frequently reject the proposed solution once they find out about it. The whole process is a tremendous waste of time and a big part of the reason government rarely solves anything. If more elected officials juat made a point of talking to people outside of their echo chamber a great deal of time and money could be saved and some progress might actually take place. 

The recent trauma tax debacle is a perfect example of miscommunication between voters and politicians. I have lived in Georgia for 40 years and I have never once had a person tell me they wanted or needed more trauma centers in the state. But despite the fact that average people didn’t think there was a problem, some hospital lobbying group convinced Georgia’s political class that a problem did exist. Once the lobbyists convinced the politicians there was a problem they all got together and hammered out an agreement that was acceptable to them. As usual the solution called for Georgia’s taxpayers to cough up millions of dollars. So once they were satisfied with their solution the political class went to the people of Georgia. The voters weighed the option of paying millions of dollars to solve a problem they had never heard of or faced and said no. The whole process was a complete waste of time and money that could have been spent on one of the real problems facing Georgians.

 A similar process is taking place now in Georgia’s struggle to address transportation infrastructure needs. Both the voters and politicans seem to agree that Georgia needs transportation improvements in this case but the trouble is that the political class and the voters disagree on the solution.

The political class say they could fix the problem if they only had more money. What the political class doesn’t understand is that the voters don’t blame infrastructure needs on a lack of money, the voters place the blame on the political class. Taxes in Georgia are the 16th highest in all of the United States while transportation spending is 49th out 50. See the problem?

But Georgia’s political class won’t accept the fact that they have been the problem. Instead, the politicians and lobbyists  sat down together and once again hammered out an agreement acceptable to the politicans and lobbyists.  And once again their solution is to raise taxes… billions and billions of dollars in taxes. That solution must have sounded awfully good in their echo chamber because a few months ago the political class unveiled this genius idea to great fanfair and they patted themselves on the back so hard that Atlanta’s chiropractors must have made a fortune.

But the people that will pay for this enormous tax increase are not impressed, they are hurting. They face 10% unemployment while the other 90% are still unsure of the future. More than 12,000 Georgia homes were foreclosed in July. IRA accounts and home prices are going down while grocery and gasoline prices are going up. To make matters worse their federal income taxes are going up in a few weeks and they will have even less money to spend. Georgia voters are hurting and they find it offensive that political insiders have decided taxpayers need to pay billions of dollars more to fund transportation improvements. While transportation improvements might bring jobs to Georgia in a decade or so, the state’s taxpayers would have to cough up billions of dollars that could have gone to pay their mortgage or put food on the table in the meantime.

During Georgia’s recent economic boom transportation issues were a top priority for Georgia taxpayers. Voters pleaded for road improvements but the political class ignored their pleas and spent the money elsewhere. Now that the economy has tanked the roads are no longer the highest priority for voters. Money is the top priority now and the politicans find the shoe on the other foot. So as the political insiders plead for money to improve roads in the current environment I fully expect Georgia’s voters will ignore their pleas in return.

 You can read Mr. Galloway’ Political Insider column on ajc.com here: http://bit.ly/gqeLnw

(Added 12/2/10 ) P.S. I forgot to mention that Mr. Galloway conspicuously chose not to allow comments on the column cited above. It is the only recent column which doesn’t permit comments and I don’t ever remember seeing him block comments before. Feel free to draw your own conclusions.