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PERDUE DOES THE RIGHT THING
WHATS UP IN NEW DEVELOPMENT
Gov. Sonny Perdue reached a significant
milestone last week as he finished the process
of signing or vetoing the bills and resolutions
passed by legislators this year. Barring an
emergency that requires him to call a special
session of the General Assembly, those are
probably the last pieces of legislation Perdue
will sign during his two terms as Georgia's
chief executive.
The governor deserves praise for one of the
measures he decided not to sign into law. For
the second year in a row. Perdue vetoed a bill
that would have greatly reduced the state's
capital gains tax. This was essentially the
same bill pushed by Rep. Tom Graves and
Sen. Chip Rogers that Perdue vetoed
last year. Graves, who just won a
special election to fill Nathan
Deal's congressional seat, mis
leadingly touted HB 1023 as a
"jobs bill' because it would have
granted a few small tax and fee
exemptions for employers.
That's nonsense. The bill would
have really resulted in a financial
bonanza for Georgia's wealthiest
citizens who have significant amounts
of money tied up in stocks, bonds and other
investments. The major provision in HB 1023
would cut in half the capital gains tax paid
when stocks are sold. This tax break would
have amounted to more than $350 million a
year—but most of that $350 million in ben
efits would have flowed to the people in the
state's top income brackets.
When this bill was passed last year a fis
cal analysis determined that 77 percent of
the benefits from the tax cut would go to the
wealthiest 1 percent of Georgians (in terms of
income) and 92 percent of the benefits would
go to the top 5 percent of income earners.
The bottom 80 percent of Georgians—
which includes middle-class workers and fam
ilies—would have received about 1 percent of
the total benefits from the tax cut.
Tax cuts can be a good thing. I'd certainly
appreciate having a few more of them myself.
If lawmakers are going to pass a tax break,
however, they should adopt one that benefits
more than just the wealthiest 5 percent of
Georgians.
When Perdue vetoed this tax break last
year, he noted that it was not a good idea to
be cutting revenues when state government
was trying to cope with the worst recession in
more than 70 years.
"During a period of growth in our economy,
the budget may be able to absorb tax cuts
that result in short-term revenue reductions
but provide long-term economic benefits,"
Perdue said recently in his veto message. "We
are not, however, experiencing a growing
economy at this point."
The situation for state govern
ment has only gotten worse since
Perdue wrote those words last
year. State and local governments
are still struggling to find the
money to pay for basic services
like schools, health care and pub
lic safety.
Ripping another $350 million
out of state revenues by giving a tax
cut to the rich just blows a bigger hole
in the budget.
In vetoing the tax cut this year. Perdue
referred to another bill he signed that creates
a special commission to review all of Georgia's
tax policies later this year and recommend
changes in them.
Rather than sign a tax break that would
have such a major impact on state revenues,
let's give the study commission a chance to
look at the whole tax structure and see where
it can be improved.
Perdue had the wisdom to recognize this
when he vetoed HB 1023. He did the right
thing.
Tom Crawford tcravdord0capitolimpact net
Tom Crawford is the editor of The Georgia Report an
Internet news service at www.gareport.com that cov
ers government and politics in Georgia
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Every square foot counts in Georgia's tini
est county, it seems, if the pending court case
questioning the tax-exempt status of Null's
Space is any indication. Unfortunately for us,
much of our economy depends on indepen
dent tax-exempt entities. Even more worrying
is the lack of oversight we as citizens have
over these entities. So, what does alt this
mean for our company town?
The biggest and most obvious player is
the University of Georgia. With an enroll
ment around 35,000, this is the largest single
feature of the local economy. However, UGA's
status as a state entity gives us little say in
its planning decisions. The university's cam
pus creates a successful edge at Broad and
College, but few other places. Baxter ought
to be a lively zone, but isn't. The university
will likely build out along Oconee and South
Newton streets, but currently those are barren
parking wastelands. The medical school and
hospital authority are likely about to squeeze
Normaltown, as pressures
mount on both skies to con
nect. Already the hospital
has started acquiring the
commercial property along
the southern side of Prince
Avenue; did you know they
own the Pizza Hut on
the comer of Oglethorpe
Avenue?
The Classic Center does
bring a lot of money into
the community with its
conventions. However, every
new round of SPIOST seems
to bring a new expansion,
required to attract and
retain bigger and bigger
conventions. At what point
will this end? Is there a
point when the Classic Center is big enough?
Already the convention halls are casting a
long shadow over the eastern end of down
town, engulfing what should have been the
gateway to an urban river district along
the North Oconee. There's talk of building a
second football stadium as part of the Georgia
World Congress Center in Atlanta; should we
build three to compete? Perhaps we should
strive for one scale of convention, and do
that welt rather than continuing an endless
cycle of growth. At some point, the arrival
of increasing waves of conventioneers on a
weekly basis will start to have a fairly notice
able impact on downtown Athens. Around
3500 people may dilute fairly well into the
crowd, but 10,000 might not.
Churches are another one-dimensional
street killer. They generate a lot of traffic
on Sunday mornings, and other than a few
folks going out to brunch, they don't seem
to generate much economic impact But their
campuses are growing; no longer just sanc
tuaries, they now need entire wings of class
rooms, meeting halls, and gymnasia for youth
groups. Unfortunately, these sorts of features
create black holes in the urban fabric.
What many of these entities share is a
common approach to growth. They build in
an inwardly focused campus at the center,
and then push outward, acquiring new prop
erty and converting it to temporary surface
parking. As new buildings occupy those lots,
new land is acquired and the gravel fringe is
pushed out Take a walk around ARMC, the
Classic Center or UGA, and notice these dead
These large bureaucracies, each with an
independent and inwardly focused campus,
were aU created to provide some public good
for the community, the region or the state,
and growth is happening by every one of
those metrics, so our service bureaucra
cies ought to be growing to match, right?
The inevitability of bureaucratic growth is
something I doubt we can do much about,
but there are some strategies which can
improve the relationship. ARMC does a good
job of providing a park for the surrounding
neighborhood; that model could be repeated
with services. Consider it a trade of services;
the untaxed entity trades something like park
space which it can provide for something it
can't, like police and fire.
Going back to the Nug's court case, it
might be beneficial to allow or encourage
nonprofits like churches to have unaffili
ated ventures renting out space which might
ameliorate conditions tike the blank white
An expanding Classic Center niff further isolate these existing businesses
from downtown
wail of First United Methodist on Washington
Street If churches can do something that
neatly improves the value of surrounding tax
able land, then maybe it's OK that they don't
pay taxes.
What needs changing most is the pat
tern of building. Planning should focus on a
v build-to Hne" with growth first concentrat
ing on creating the campus-city edge, and
then filling in behind and along it. Imagine if
the UGA Special Collections Library were being
built on a visible comer which is now in park
ing, rather than hidden away. This would allow
private land to increase in value based on the
investment across the street
Although the desire for a contiguous
campus makes sense for the planning of an
inwardly focused campus, dosing streets
from public use is no good. The Classic
Center is plotting the demise of a block of
Hancock, and UGA stiU has its eyes on South
Lumpkin. The super-block, however, is a relic
of the worst of Modernist city planning, and a
well-documented neighborhood killer. Creative
strategies which accomplish both intra-cam
pus connectivity and uninterrupted continu
ity of the dty fabric should be explored.
It's not likely that the Athens economy will
shift away from its current shape any time
soon, so we might as well get cozy with our
lumbering bureaucracies, and learn to live
together. If town and (university/hospital/
choir) gown can recognize that the environ
ments of each are more successful when they
are highly connected, well be a lot better off.
Kevan Williams aihensrising@ftagpoie com
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JUNE 16,2010 FLAGPOLE.COM
OWN WILIAMS