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216 Group: Conservatives Joining Forces in General Assembly
By Chris Farris | March 5, 2007
For immediate release
Conservatives Joining Forces in General Assembly
In most of Georgia, the ground is starting to thaw, birds have reappeared in places and legislators under the Gold Dome have reached the halfway point of their annual, 40-day winter session.
This year, conservatives have joined together as a group. The 216 Group has been assembled and we are working on reducing taxes, cutting the size of government, promoting personal responsibility and protecting our freedoms.
For example, the Georgia House has appointed a tax reform committee that will look at revising Georgia’s tax code from top to bottom.
This means everything is on the table from abolishing property taxes and the statewide income tax to enacting a flat tax, a fair tax or a statewide sales tax.
Georgians believe our system of taxation is unfair and want real reform that not only brings balance to taxation, but reduces the overall tax burden at the same time.
According to the Tax Foundation and the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, Georgia ranked 25th in the nation when it comes to states with the highest state and local tax burden. That is up from the late 1970s when Georgia ranked 32nd or the late 1980s when it ranked 30th.
Instead, Georgia’s tax burden should be moving in the other direction as our population has increased and economy exploded in the past 20 years. More jobs and more revenue for state and local governments should have made it easy for efficient governments to operate without large tax increases.
In addition to cutting taxes, lawmakers are attempting to reduce the size of government with initiatives such as legislation introduced to sunset state departments, agencies and commissions every two years.
A House bill introduced this winter would create a legislative sunset commission to determine if these state entities are meeting performance measures, should be consolidated with other departments or should be eliminated.
That is a bold attempt to reduce the size of government.
A similar effort in Texas, enacted in 1977, has saved the state of Texas more almost $800 million and eliminated 47 agencies and caused 11 more to consolidate.
Perhaps no other piece of legislation moving through the General Assembly this session is garnering more attention than a Senate bill that gives parents and students more options in education. The “Georgia Special Needs Scholarship Act†empowers parents with more freedom and personal responsibility by issuing children with special needs a scholarship to attend another private or public school of their choice.
Instead of just sending their child to the nearest public school, parents of disabled children will be empowered to be more involved in their child’s education as they will be notified of this option. They will be given the freedom to attend a school that provides the type of education services that better fits their child’s learning style.
And on another front, to protect our liberty and freedom, lawmakers have introduced a variety of bills to protect our Second Amendment Rights. One bill would allow motorists to keep an unlicensed weapon in a vehicle so they might protect themselves.
Another bill would allow employees to keep licensed weapons locked in their car or truck while at work. The premise is that no employer can bar a worker from exercising their Second Amendment rights – such as bearing firearms in their personal, locked vehicle.
Despite what some may say, there is many Republicans at the Georgia State Capitol, striving to promote the principles of less taxes, reducing the size of government, promoting personal responsibility and enhancing liberty and justice for all.
Representative Steve Davis, a Republican, representing Henry County in the Georgia House of Representatives.
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