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Georgia's bottom line

Posted by
Walter Geiger
in Opinion
Wednesday, March 24. 2010
Comments (15)
By Dr. Scott Beaulier

Layoffs. Crumbling budgets. Foreclosures. Rising unemployment. Crisis. These words pepper the headlines of newspapers across the nation. And unfortunately, Georgia too. Today, our state faces a financial crossroads: either we continue down the same worn path of fiscal mismanagement or we pave a new road of fiscal sanity for Georgia.

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#1 William Smith on 03/24/10 at 06:52 AM
From 2000 through 2008 Georgia’s population grew by 18.3%—one of the fastest population growths in the nation. With this growth the need for government services also increases.
You accuse the state’s administration of excessive spending but you don’t give any examples.
Could it be that those poor people you are so worried about have affected government spending by increased entitlements. About that cigarette tax, If I were in financial distress I would……….”quit smoking”!
You want to see excessive spending, vote for Roy Barnes.
#2 private on 03/24/10 at 07:20 AM
this writer neglected to mention that smokers use government health services and other support in higher proportion than other groups. So, they should suck it up and pay their share or quit.
#2.1 Sheila Tolley on 03/24/10 at 09:50 AM
And people who have cancer genes in their family should not have children, right?
#2.1.1 Anonymous on 03/24/10 at 09:44 PM
I agree with that it's time for a cleansing
#3 Anonymous on 03/24/10 at 08:37 AM
I think its hilarious how those who have the power to let there voices be known always fail to mention that it is the gross ill responsibility of businesses and corporations that requires our governments on both the state and federal level to maintain such an immensity. It’s the lack of oversight of major corporations that put our economy in this mess in the first place and not the size of our government or the level of its entitlements. Now that so many are out of work the support badly is needed. As far as smoking……..Smokers are drug addicts and the pusher is the cigarette industry. People are talked into doing something stupid like smoking by the culture created my shrewd corporate marketing schemes. Research shows the 1 out of every 5 people that die are related to cigarette smoking. Currently, 64% of cigarette smokers die from a smoking related illness. Cigarette Smoking is the number 1 preventable cause of death. I say tax them to where it become unprofitable to peddle this type deadly drug.
#3.1 Sheila Tolley on 03/24/10 at 09:59 AM
Then who will pay the sin taxes? Thugs? Why isn't the price of alcohol jacked up every three months? Let's collect taxes from murders? Thieves? Politicians? OH yeah. POLITICIANS. I am not a smoker but I wish everyone would quit buying cigs for six months and see where taxes go? To The Moon Alice! Smoking is not illegal anymore than speeding. You ever got a ticket? Is obesity unheathful? Let's tax donuts.
#3.2 Sheila Tolley on 03/24/10 at 10:04 AM
I disagree with you second to the last sentence. BIRTH is the number one preventable cause of death. Your president is working on that next. Abortions will resolve that problem.
#3.2.1 Anonymous on 03/24/10 at 11:30 AM
Yes, and children having children and folks having children they can't support or parent is the cause of everything else.
#4 dogboy on 03/24/10 at 09:11 AM
A classic case of creating an unrealistic set of options. The legislature has more than just the options of cutting spending or raising taxes. The author is correct in stating that you cannot spend your way out of the recession, but you cannot cut your way out of it either. What business would want to come to a state with no water, traffic gridlock, crumbling infrastructure and a third world education system regarless of how low the taxes are? Only low wage, environmental unfriendly ones. What is needed is a balanced approach that identifies what areas government can act most effectively in and a tax system that provides sufficient revenues to do so.
#5 Anonymous on 03/24/10 at 09:20 AM
We are all victims of corporate marketing schemes...and if we look a little closer to home, I am sure most people will find something they cannot live without. For some people the addiction may be cigarettes, coffee, shopping, adult literature, tv, gossip, internet, blogging, reading..all of these activities in excess are not good for yourself or family.
It is funny to hear people bash the consumer and not the industry or system that allows this sort of corporate evil to continue...anything to earn a dollar I guess.
#6 Anonymous on 03/24/10 at 11:02 AM
Did Sonny Perdue approve this message? Or was he fishing on he multimillion dollar pond?
#7 VirgilK on 03/24/10 at 08:29 PM
States are going to be very disappointed. Of the last 40 states to pass a new cigarette tax only 8 saw a rise in revenue and the others saw as much as a 68% drop. With this new Federal tax there is going to be an even a larger drop in revenue. When will these idiots understand they are taxing poor people into quitting with no hope of generating more income. You cannot hope to increase revenue and drive the very thing you are taxing out of business. This is going to cost the Federal and State Governments the Billions they are hoping to get plus Billions less than they are receiving now. Greed and stupidity are not a good mix. One Senator, on the floor of the Senate, said we will need 22 million new smokers to keep the SCHIP program funded. Without new smokers it will fail within 2 to 4 years. Has anyone noticed that smoking has gone from 54% to less than 20.4%? Looks like the smokers will be joined by all the Non-Smokers in paying for this SCHIP program the Anti-Smokers are so proud of. Then you will hear some real bitching. Being open to others being over taxed comes back to bite you and it will. It’s called Socialism and other ism’s we won’t like.
#8 anon1 on 03/24/10 at 09:02 PM
I will go along with taxing smokers an additional dollar for the burden they place on the healthcare system if you agree to tax homosexuals. Because of the brazen act of one homosexual who decided to love a monkey, our country has spent billions and billions of dollars on AIDS prevention, medicine, and research. Why should I have to pay for this? 94% of AIDS patients got it from unprotected homo-sex or intraveinious drug use. Why should any person who doesn't engage in homosexual activities or shooting drugs have to pay for this? They deserve a special sin tax to pay for the burden they have placed on the healthcare system just like smokers. And don't forget people who stay out in the sun who contract melonomia or skin cancer. They need to be taxed per hour they stay in the sun or tanning bed. Or at least a dollar a day tax on any individual who stays in the sun more than 3 hours straight. And how can we forget drinkers. There is no questions all the idiotic things alcohol has made people do that landed them in the hospital or at least the emergency room. I say a dollar tax per alcoholic drink. If we want to enact a sin tax in this state, let's get all of the sinners, not just a few, and really get this state in good financial standing.
#8.1 Anonymous on 03/25/10 at 07:23 AM
Man….what weird logic! It’s not a homosexual who commits bestiality but zoophiles and many who contract aids get it through a heterosexual relationship. What you are missing is the drain on the medical industry smoking creates and if tax revenues go down because of the tax increase tells you that the effort to reduce the number of smokers is working.
#9 Steve the Rational One on 03/25/10 at 08:15 AM
Yes, let's privatize the University System of Georgia and raise tuition by 77 percent this year. I think people are tired of the games politicians play.

The socialist rhetoric of "shared sacrifice" coming from republicans these days is crazy. It would be one thing if they were ethically consistent, but this kind of crisis only exposes their hypocrisy.

If you want to have roads and schools, you have to pay for them. If you don't want them, fine, but then businesses will not locate here. Republicans, we are no longer in the nineteenth century, and it is time to quit this simplisitic rhetoric about economics. Or perhaps complex thinking is also in decline here.
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