The seventh week of Session was historic, as Georgia passed a massive $5.5 billion Income Tax Cut: the first cut in 80 years and the largest cut in the Peach State’s history.
The House and Governor led the way, demanding that we deal with the unintended “windfall” that was coming to Georgia due to the recent Federal Income Tax Cut. The Georgia House actually passed a bill last year to lower your Income Tax, but the Senate did not vote on it. Because the Georgia Income Tax is “coupled” to the Federal Income Tax structure, Georgians would have experienced an unintended increase in taxes paid to Georgia because many Federal deductions are now eliminated. But now, the Income Tax Cut the Georgia House just passed will fix that. The Georgia standard deduction will double in 2018 and the Income Tax will decrease from 6 to 5.75 percent. The rate will be reduced even further to 5.5 percent in 2020.
Please remember, the overall state taxes of Georgia are lower than any other state. You enjoy the lowest (best) taxes of any citizen in America.
The Military Affairs committee I chair received good news last week: the Pentagon will not seek a BRAC (base closure process) in 2019. They also announced they will be beefing up Georgia’s installations at Fort Gordon, Fort Benning, Fort Stewart, Navy Kings Bay, and Moody AFB to the tune of billions of dollars. Unfortunately, this week we received the bad news that the Pentagon will not recapitalize (save) the JSTARS mission at Robins AFB. Though the Pentagon spent billions of dollars over the past decade to find a newer airplane to fly this reconnaissance mission, they’ve now decided to scrap it altogether. The fifty-year-old 1970’s Boeing 707’s will continue to fly its mission until 2024, but unless something changes, they will then be grounded at the cost of 3,000 jobs to middle Georgia. Senators Isakson and Perdue and Congressmen Tom Graves, Austin Scott, and Sanford Bishop are busy opposing this move.
Several good bills passed the House this week. One is a lowering of the automobile tax to 6.75 percent of the value of the car. It also halves the onerous “welcome to Georgia” tax of new citizens who move to the state and provides a framework for distribution of these revenues to the cities, counties, and local school boards.
A few Rural Development bills were voted on as well. One develops an income tax credit for maintenance on seldom-used railroads. Another expands the use of remote hospital pharmacies and streamlines billing processes. Another creates “micro-hospitals” and increases tax credits from 90 to 100 percent for donations to rural hospitals.
In Education, a flexibility measure helps State Charter schools add more money to the overall Education budget. There is also an intriguing idea that arose from the Georgia Youth Assembly that would raise the minimum school dropout age from 16 to 17. The young people who presented the bill argued that though it takes about $10,000 a year to educate a child, it takes over $20K a year to keep a person in jail…and 70 percent of inmates are high school dropouts. Also, poorly educated citizens make vastly less income and incur an average of $15K a year tax revenue loss if he doesn’t finish high school. Facts like these are why Conservatives like me are pro-education: you can pay for education now or you can pay for welfare later. A total of 32 states have a 17-year-old minimum, and states that have made this change experienced an 8 percent graduation rate increase.
The Georgia graduation rate is 17 points better than it was a few years ago, but it’s still marginally behind the nation at 81 percent.
On a completely different note, Georgia is now 15th best in the nation in AP scores. That is another big win for a state that was next to last in the SAT a decade ago.
I certainly need your prayers as I serve the people of Newton and Morgan counties. You may contact me at davebelton112@gmail.com or 706-372-4114.
