Spending cap, sales tax off House GOP’s radar

Georgia House Republicans are pulling two major proposals off their 2006 legislative agenda: one that would cap state spending and another that would trade property-tax funding of education for a higher sales tax.

In a recent meeting with GOP House members, Speaker Glenn Richardson (R-Hiram) announced that he and Gov. Sonny Perdue had agreed the two measures are off the table for the 2006 Legislature, which convenes in January. Lawmakers held committee meetings and public hearings on the proposals this summer and fall.

Both the spending limits and sales-tax-for-schools proposals would have required approval from voters as well as the Legislature, making them potentially controversial topics for the campaign trail in a year when Perdue and all 236 legislators will stand for re-election.

Political observers said the GOP decision suggests the 2006 Legislature will stick with topics not likely to offend large numbers of voters.

“In an election year, you want to be with the tried and true, not with the controversial and risky,” said Kerwin Swint, professor of political science at Kennesaw State University.

Richardson said Wednesday he did not support an artificial cap on state spending or a rush to shift some of the burden for public school funding from property taxpayers to the shopping public.

“I believe the governor and the General Assembly have . . . shown great restraint and self-control by being fiscally responsible during difficult financial times,” the speaker said. “But to constitutionally limit the responsibility of lawmakers to set our state’s budgetary parameters is ill-advised [and] might have devastating consequences during difficult economic times and statewide emergencies when budgetary flexibility is necessary to meet the needs of Georgians.”

Richardson said school funding is “an extremely important issue that needs more thought and research.”

Since the last legislative session, GOP leaders have studied a Georgia version of Colorado’s Taxpayer Bill of Rights, known as TABOR, considered the nation’s most stringent limit on a state legislature’s ability to tax and spend. TABOR, which has been endorsed by national conservative groups, likely would have capped Georgia state spending under a formula based on inflation and population growth. Excess revenue would have been refunded to taxpayers.

Legislators also promoted the idea of doing away with local school property taxes — always unpopular among homeowners — and offsetting that lost revenue with a 3 percent increase in the state sales tax.

Red flags quickly went up on both issues.

Educators opposed the sales tax proposal, saying it would take control of schools completely out of local hands and shortchange systems that want to offer teachers supplemental pay or special programs for students. Teachers packed the audiences at a series of public hearings and found allies among some property owners who are 65 or older and are exempt from paying local school taxes.

Colorado suspends limits

Earlier this month, Colorado residents voted to suspend for five years the spending limits they approved in 1992 under their Taxpayer Bill of Rights. Voters were told it was either suspend TABOR or accept damaging cuts in health care, education, transportation and other programs — on top of the $1 billion that Republican Gov. Bill Owens said already had been trimmed in recent years.

Tim Callahan, spokesman for the Professional Association of Georgia Educators, the state’s largest teachers group, cheered the decision to drop the sales tax proposal.

“I think the more people learned about it, the less attractive a proposal it seemed to be — for a growing variety of individuals and groups.”

Reaction to delay mixed

Phil Kent, a conservative Atlanta writer and political consultant, said the delay on discussion of the sales tax proposal was probably a wise decision.

“It was never fully explained how the funding mechanism would work. But with regards to TABOR, that’s a sad move. That would have been a very healthy debate over taxation.”

House Majority Leader Jerry Keen (R-St. Simons Island), the biggest champion of abolishing the local property tax for schools, wouldn’t say the issue is dead for next year.

But he conceded that he probably wouldn’t have the two-thirds vote that a constitutional amendment would need to get through the General Assembly and onto the ballot for voter approval.

State Rep. Donna Shelton (R-Dacula), who has been chairing a committee on a Georgia version of TABOR, said such a dramatic change needs a thorough vetting.

“I’ve agreed to just continue to work on it,” she said.