Georgia Legislative Watch

State Rep. Ron Stephens wants to increase the cigarette tax by one dollar:

For the first time in five years, state lawmakers are looking at raising the tax on a pack of cigarettes by $1.

The additional revenue would go to fund health care programs in Georgia, said Rep. Ron Stephens, a Republican from Savannah sponsoring the legislation.

He announced the legislation at a news conference at the Capitol, flanked by representatives from the American Lung Association, the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, the American Heart Association and the American Cancer Society.
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The legislation faces an uphill battle.

Stephens’ legislation is HB 1197.

A Senate committee passed a constitutional amendment for what is being called a T-SPLOST, a Transportation Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax. The T-SPLOST is 1-cent sales tax for county governments to utilize for specific transportation projects. The legislation can be viewed here.

The State Senate has approved two amendments to the Georgia Constitution that would freeze property tax assessments, forcing local governments to raise property taxes through millage rate increases:

The proposals, which would have to be approved by voters in November, would essentially force cities, counties and school districts to raise tax rates — rather than assessments — if they want anything more than a minimal increase in revenue.

Lawmakers say if they limit property assessment increases, they will be making it tougher politically for local officials to raise more revenue.

“Taxes ought to be visible and hard to raise,” said Senate President Pro-tem Eric Johnson (R-Savannah), the sponsor of one of the bills. “Having a school board raise taxes just one mill can get a candidate beat.

“What this really does is stop the back-door tax increases. That is where the real frustration is.”

The proposed constitutional amendments, which passed the Senate 53-3 and 48-7, now head to the House…

The amendments are SR 686 and SR 796.

The current version of the GREAT plan will get a hearing in Ways & Means on Thursday. The Speaker is presenting the plan himself to the committee. Word is that it’ll come to the floor for a vote. I don’t have a date on that as of now.

I’ll post more on this once I get more information.

Senator David Shafer has an op-ed in the Athens Banner Herald on our upcoming border skirmish with Tennessee.

I get quoted in an article about how we’d better hone up on those time management skills.

Lawmakers said something last week about how the DOR says that revenues are down 7% in the last few months. Meanwhile the General Assembly voted to spend $300 Million more of your dollars.

Finally State Rep. Sharon Beasley-Teague is under investigation for abusing her mileage per-diem.