The Daily Citizen, Dalton, GA

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January 22, 2012

Let Georgians vote on state spending cap

Dalton Daily Citizen



Republicans in the Georgia Senate have released their economic agenda for the current legislative session. Most of their ideas, such as requiring state agencies to justify all their spending requests through “zero based” budgeting, make sense.

But if we had to pick one item for the General Assembly to move to the top of its agenda it would be Resolution 20, a proposed amendment to the state Constitution that would bar state spending from growing faster than the inflation rate and the rate of population growth. The amendment would require that any revenue that exceeds spending be put into the state’s “rainy day” fund, and once that fund comes to 15 percent of annual spending, that revenue would be used to roll back the state income tax.

The Senate passed this resolution last year. But the state House of Representatives has yet to act on the measure. It takes both chambers to put a constitutional amendment on the ballot.

The General Assembly has essentially coerced Georgians into voting on regional special purpose local option sales taxes (SPLOSTS) for transportation during the general primary this year by tying the matching funds local governments receive for transportation projects to the tax. If regional officials didn’t put the tax on the ballot, the state would have required them to match state funding 50 percent. In those that hold a referendum, and all will, the local match will be 30 percent if voters reject the tax and 10 percent if they approve it.

If the Legislature can force us to vote for higher taxes, they should at least allow us to vote on limiting state spending.

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