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• State Issues

Dear Senator:

     On behalf of the National Taxpayers Union’s (NTU)’s nearly 8,300 members in Georgia, I strongly urge you to support Senate Resolution 20 (SR 20), which would create a limitation on tax and spending increases in the state constitution. SR 20 would provide vital protections for overburdened Georgia taxpayers.

     For the last few years, Georgia’s families and small businesses have struggled to get by in this down economy with unemployment hovering around ten percent. Meanwhile, the state has deficits in excess of $1 billion. Georgians are looking to their state government to help ease their burden by keeping taxes low and government spending manageable, and to allow the economy to flourish. One of the best ways to ensure that the burden on hard-working Georgians does not increase is to adopt a tax and expenditure limitation.

     SR 20 would allow the state’s budget to grow at the rate of increases in inflation plus population from year to year. The bill also provides that any excess revenue collected would go to funding spending increases in education due to increases in enrollment and then to shortfall reserve fund, which shall be 15% of the previous year’s budget. Any remaining excess revenue the rest would be returned to the taxpayer.

     The fact of the matter is that small government tends to keep tax rates low, which allows economies to flourish and the quality of life to improve. Smaller government also tends to be less burdensome financially. Compare states Indiana and Utah, which have weathered the recession reasonably well, to states like Illinois and California, which have not. Tax and expenditure limitations like SR 20 encourage fiscal prudence in government and prioritize spending decisions. By prioritizing spending, Georgia will have to make the decisions about what it can afford to do rather than doing more than what is in its means, sparing Georgians the hardship of higher taxes.

     Georgians are counting you to look after the interests of taxpayers. Therefore, I urge you to support SR 20.

Sincerely,

John Stephenson
State Government Affairs Manager