Many thanks Andy Roth over at the Club for Growth for giving us some link love today.

1 Comment »

Porkbusters is giving a rundown of earmark requests in the upcoming defense appropriations package. In total there are 1,776 earmarks.

There are 76 earmark requests for Georgia…

• Jack Kingston – 26 earmarks
• Sanford Bishop – 18 earmarks
• Jim Marshall – 10 earmarks
• Phil Gingrey – 7 earmarks
• Hank Johnson – 4 earmarks
• David Scott – 4 earmarks
• John Lewis – 3 earmarks
• John Barrow – 2 earmarks
• Lynn Westmoreland – 2 earmarks
• John Linder – 0 earmarks
• Tom Price – 0 earmarks
• Nathan Deal – 0 earmarks
• Paul Broun – N/A

It should be noted that Jack Kingston (R-1st) and Sanford Bishop (D-2nd) sit on the House Appropriations Committee and have military bases within their respective districts.

1 Comment »

It looks like there won’t be much sunlight in how the State House works in its pork barrel projects:

Meeting with reporters recently, Majority Leader Jerry Keen said House GOP budget writers may decide to hold off considering proposed capital projects until the spending plan reaches a conference committee with the Senate, the last step before lawmakers adopt the budget.
[...]
The idea of waiting until the conference committee meets to take up capital projects is modeled after an approach the legislature already has begun taking with so-called “special projects,” the local grants lawmakers insert into the budget each year that critics deride as “pork” projects.

This year, the conference committee added $6.5 million in local grants to the budget during their final negotiations.

Keen, R-St. Simons Island, said the process worked well because those projects became associated with the full General Assembly rather than with the parochial interests of an individual legislator or legislative chamber.

“Projects that are good for Georgia should be good for Georgia,” he said. “They shouldn’t be labeled as ‘this person’s project’ or ‘this body’s project.’”

Rep. John Heard, R-Lawrenceville, chairman of the House budget subcommittee on special projects, said he likes the idea of expanding the concept, as long as capital projects receive the same vetting that his panel gave to the local grants individual House members requested.

As Chris Farris notes, this is the exact same way Democrats in the United States Congress have been adding their pork projects, a move that has been severely criticized by bloggers and fiscally conservative political commentators.

It didn’t take long for Georgia Republicans to let the power get to their heads.

1 Comment »

With the surplus in Georgia now being reported at $1.2 billion, we should be pressing the state legislature for a tax break. American for Prosperity is pushing for the legislature to return any funds leftover back to the taxpayers. They have a petition that you can sign at this new website (actually, its a couple weeks old):

In May of 2007, $142 million dollars that had been dedicated to tax relief by the General Assembly was placed into the Revenue Shortfall Reserve by executive action. We, the taxpayers of Georgia, ask you to commit that these funds are not spent in the General Fund as is allowed by law (OCGA § 45-12-93), but pledge that the monies will be dedicated toward tax relief for Georgians.

By state law the surplus is already maxed out at $800 million. This leaves our legislators with far too much of our money in their hands. Idle legislators hands spend time spending our money, especially when there is a significant surplus.

Please sign the petition so we can send a message to our legislators that we want our tax dollars returned for our own personal prosperity instead of them pissing it away on vote buying pork projects.

No Comments »

Sonny Perdue should have been impeached over his proposed tax increase in 2003, but this is absolutely inexcusable:

Turns out the state could afford that $142 million property tax cut that Gov. Sonny Perdue vetoed after all.

State tax collections jumped $1.2 billion during the recently completed fiscal year, leaving officials with a $600 million budget surplus.

Most of the money will go into state reserves, which now stand at a record $1.2 billion.

However, collections were up 7 percent in June, and rose 7.5 percent for the fiscal year, which ended June 30. Income tax collections, which were down the month before Perdue vetoed the tax cut, rose 9.4 percent last year.

The government lines it’s pockets with money that should be returned to the taxpayers. Thanks, Sonny.

No Comments »