Fresh Political Pickins From The Peach State

Today’s Courier Herald Column:  

They’re back.  Members of the Georgia General Assembly are in the process of returning to Atlanta for another 40 business days of legislating and governing.  And as it has been every year since 1962, the unofficial beginning to the legislative session will be the Wild Hog Supper held at the Georgia Freight Depot.   The event is sponsored by the Georgia Friends of Agriculture trade association and the $20 tickets sold to the event support the Georgia Food Bank Association.

The event is symbolic in that the only knives out are those to slice pulled pork.  Those who will be adversaries the following morning gather in one room to eat barbecue, roasted corn, peach ice cream and other Georgia grown goodies.  Democrats and Republicans alike, the event is quite open and accessible to all.

Most of Georgia’s statewide elected officials, members of the Congressional delegation, members of the General Assembly, and many local elected officials work the crowd. Alongside them are voters of all stripes, party activists and leaders, and of course lobbyists.  There won’t be a gathering of this many officials without those whose job it is to influence them.  But lobbyists are generally not in the spotlight or the highlight of the event.  Quite the contrary, of all the events which government officials take part in each season, it remains one of the most open and transparent of them, with a feel that it represents the entire cross section of Georgians. [click to continue…]

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From the AJC, here’s a list of vanity tags requested by motorists but rejected by the Georgia Department of Revenue. Some are funny, some are just as disgusting as you would  expect. From the lead-in: “[The list] …includes more than a few thoughts that would incite an almost immediate, violent reaction from fellow motorists. But some of the other banned tags are just silly and others are completely inoffensive. Check out the list for yourself. And remember, treat this list with the maturity and seriousness it deserves.” (Emphasis mine.) And please note that many of these requests are so NSFW that you have to click an agree button before you can see them.

UPDATE: From State Rep. Brett Harrell (R-Snellville) via Twitter, who thinks the state has no business in vanity tags:

Please continue to discuss.

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So the AJC has their photo vault on tumblr. Kinda cool. To wish  the current Falcons good luck this weekend, here’s a great picture from an earlier era.

You could waste a whole day looking through that archive, or you could order yourself a copy with a link found here. Enjoy, and consider this a Falcons-themed Open Thread:

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In December 2006, Georgia’s taxes and other revenues totaled $1.63 billion. In December 2007, the total was slightly higher, but still rounded to $1.63 billion.

And then came the deep recession.

By 2011, collections in December had recovered to $1.54 billion.

Total taxes and other revenues in December 2012 totaled $1.69 billion — clearly surpassing pre-recession levels with a 9.8 percent increase over 2011.

The revenue categories that are the best indicators of the current state of the economy both showed healthy year-over-year gains. Gross sales and use tax rose 3.9 percent and individual income tax rose 11.8 percent in December compared to a year ago.

Corporate income taxes make up less than 10 percent of the state’s revenues, but those also increased 8.2 percent.

Now, it’s worth noting that if we adjusted all of these numbers for inflation, we’d still be significantly below pre-recession levels. And as the AJC notes: “The increase was welcome news as Deal’s aides are preparing a budget that will be presented to lawmakers during the legislative session that begins Monday. But the gains aren’t expected to be enough to stave off a new round of belt-tightening.”

But these are good numbers, especially considering the cable news networks would have had you believing that Americans spent all of December hunkered down at home watching the debacle about the so-called “fiscal cliff”.

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So Kyle Wingfield wrote a column about his interview with Sen. Saxby Chambliss, mostly about the possibility of shutting down the government (yes, please!) but tagged this little nugget from our Senator on at the end:

“This is an eight-year decision for me. It’s two years [campaigning] plus six years” in office, he said. “And if I thought the next eight years were going to be filled with contentious debates and the wrong way to govern that we have just gone through in the last two months, it would have a significant impact on my decision. But yeah, right now my plans are to run.” [click to continue…]

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Qualifying ended yesterday for the special election in House District 71.  The special election will take place on February 5th and the runoff, if needed, will take place on March 5th.  The qualified candidates are listed below the fold:

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Today’s Courier Herald Column:

6 Months can be a lifetime in politics.  At the end of July, the most talked about political topic was transportation, and how Georgia would pay for it.  Many state legislators, feeling the heat for the Frankenstein-like transportation funding mechanism that they put before the people, ran away from their own “solution”, insisting they would be back before the legislature this session with a better plan.

Actual solutions, however, tend to cost money.  They also require an investment of time, political capital, and some sense of vision where the state needs to go.  With transportation planning, all of the above seem to be in short supply.

Virginia’s Governor, Bob McDonnell, has proposed a significant revision to the funding formula for his state’s transportation network.  He plans to scrap his state’s tax on gasoline altogether and replace it with a .8% increase in the state’s sales tax.  Taxes on diesel fuel – mostly used by large trucks which are the cause for a majority of the ongoing required road maintenance – will remain in place.  And a bit more curiously, he plans on initiating a new $100 annual fee for alternative fuel vehicles citing the fact that they don’t contribute to the federal gas taxes which will remain and thus aren’t paying their fair share towards transportation projects. [click to continue…]

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Yesterday, your intrepid correspondent brought news to you that the Rev. Louie Giglio would offer the benediction at Obama’s inauguration. Or rather–was scheduled to do so.

 ABC’s Jonathan Karl reports he was cut when a sermon that Rev. Giglio offered in the 90s was discovered. In it, he spoke of the “aggressive [homosexual] agenda.” He added “it is not a benevolent movement, it is a movement to seize by any means necessary the feeling and the mood of the day, to the point where the homosexual lifestyle becomes accepted as a norm in our society and is given full standing as any other lifestyle, as it relates to family.”

As our own Jim Galloway posted, somewhat snarkishly (but 100% accurately): “This is unexpected from a well-known, conservative pastor? Somebody didn’t do his homework.”

One hopes that President Obama will stick with an Atlanta-based pastor to replace Giglio. This reporter humbly suggests Rev. Eddie Long. He’s legit. Trust me.

ETA: CNN says Giglio withdrew himself from the schedule.

Hattip to my main man Charlie for the info. 

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Just a bit of a bump…

Right now, the Georgia Public Service Commission is hearing arguments for and against the imposition of a $5 minimum charge on Lifeline telephone service.  As previously discussed here, the Lifeline program is funded by the Federal Universal Service Fund and provides a $9.25 discount to low-income individuals that qualify for other Federal programs.  Certain phone companies have used the Federal program, which is administered by the PSC, to offer free cell phones and a small bucket of minutes.  The program is rife with fraud and abuse and the $5 minimum charge would cure these problems while keeping the program in place for those that need it.

However, the powers that be would like to continue to loot the fund at a rate of $9.25 per line, and it is in their interest to keep giving out “free” phones that are never used.  And it is in the best interest of the “consumer” to get as many phones as possible. So between the two of them, we are finding out where exactly Quantity Demanded goes when Price hits Zero. This vote was pushed back for months, not sure why, but it gives the commissioners a second chance to do the right thing. Hint: it’s not the thing Tracfone wants them to do.

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Jim Walls who deserves the lion’s share of credit for putting together much of the public case against Don Balfour is reporting that the GBI has finished their criminal investigation, handing results over to Attorney General Sam Olens.

Attorney General Sam Olens won’t say what the next step might be, if any. Balfour, meanwhile, appears to have retained Andersen, Tate & Carr, a Duluth law firm that is defending former Gwinnett County Commissioner Kevin Kenerly against bribery charges.

The GBI had been looking into Balfour’s compensation for legislative service and expenses after he acknowledged “inadvertently” submitting claims for per diem and mileage on days when he was actually out of the state. He agreed to a $5,000 fine last summer to settle a complaint filed with the Senate Ethics Committee.

The case has cost the Snellville Republican much more, though. Senate leadership is about to replace him as chairman of the powerful Rules Committee, and his campaign has paid nearly $80,000 in legal fees since June, including $35,000 to Andersen, Tate & Carr on Dec. 13.

It’s been clear for some time that Balfour would not continue in the powerful position as Rules Committee Chair, though that official annoucement is still forthcoming.  Jim Galloway at least found some tangible evidence of this evident truth last week.

Balfour’s future as a Senator is the subject of much speculation, and we’ll leave the speculation at that.  It may be worth noting that its easier to negotiate any plea deal before one leaves office than after, if that was a possibility.  Barring a surprise, Don Balfour will begin yet another term as a Senator from Gwinnett (R- Bribes as a way of doing business) because he keeps doing the same thing, and they keep reelecting him.

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Now, look. I’m no math genius who can make stuff up like Nate Silver, but I knows me a boondoggle when I sees it. When Georgia’s “state evalyuashun of teecher effiktivnes” shows, and I quote, “0.32 percent of teachers being classified as ineffective, [and only] 5.95 percent as developing/needs improvement…,” at the same time as Georgia’s graduation rate (67%) is “lower than every other state except Nevada and New Mexico. And far lower than the graduation rates of Mississippi (75 percent) or Alabama (72 percent)“ Well then, I think we are doing it wrong. Really, really, wrong.  [click to continue…]

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and why you shouldn’t care.

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