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GREAT plan not a good idea Like Speaker Glenn Richardson, city officials believe that tax reform is needed. A recent Georgia Municipal Association survey shows that 72 percent of city officials believe the state's tax structure needs reforming. The plan the Speaker is proposing, however, "Georgia's Repeal of Every Ad-valorem Tax (GREAT)" is not the answer. To the property owner who has seen rising tax bills as a result of rising assessments, the promise of "no more property tax" sounds appealing. But like the promises from TV infomercials of great fortune, everlasting youth or "lose 10 pounds in a week," when you look at the fine print, you see the catch. For Georgians, the catch of the GREAT plan is higher taxes and no say in how the revenues are spent. For the average Georgian, the GREAT plan will likely be a tax increase, one with no direct benefit to them. Instead of an annual property tax bill, Georgians will be quietly taxed for everyday services never taxed before. Every visit to the dentist, doctor and veterinarian; every car repair or maintenance which is done; every babysitter hired or daycare provider used; every haircut received or shirt taken to the dry cleaners will be taxed. And is there any assurance that those who pay these new taxes would receive any services from the state? Unlike the property tax, which is used to provide services to the people who pay the tax, the sales and service tax will be divided up by a handful of politicians in the state government and spent how they see fit. Speaker Richardson says school boards, cities and counties will get the same revenue under his GREAT plan as they do today, and this may indeed be so. However, no community is static; growth, new industry, changing demographics and a multitude of other criteria require that local officials provide increases or different services to meet the changes their communities experience. But if the GREAT plan was adopted, no longer could citizens expect that these needs would be met or their voices heard. The Speaker and other proponents of the plan talk about "local control" as if it matters only to local elected officials. It doesn't. A survey of Georgians earlier this year showed only 17 percent said they trusted state government to make local government funding decisions. And ask a homeowner whose house has burned down because an underfunded, under-staffed fire department couldn't get there in time how important local control is. Legislators supporting the plan have said that local officials could go to the Capitol and ask for more funds if needed. We have seen, dramatically so in the last legislative session, how the state handles its own money; how it almost couldn't adopt a state budget to deal with pressing state issues and even when the budget was adopted, statewide crises in healthcare, transportation and other areas were ignored. Yet now we are expected to believe that the legislature will not only adopt its constitutionally mandated state budget, but also deal with and understand the needs of over 600 local governments and their individual budget requests. Are we to trust that legislators from North Georgia will care that the citizens of Ty Ty want to start up a police force and need funds to do so? Or that legislators from South Georgia will have an interest in the traffic congestion in the metro area? Adopting the budget at the local level takes significant time and public input. There are no such requirements at the Capitol. In fact, often lawmakers themselves are unsure of what they have approved in the state's budget until well after the budget has been adopted.
Our country was born on the cry of "No taxation without representation!" It's time for Georgians to rally that point again and let legislators know that decisions about local funding should remain at the local level. "Trust me, I'm from the government," isn't a GREAT plan for handling our revenues - it's not even a good plan.
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