Georgia Senate leaders released their Fiscal Year 2021 budget Wednesday, but they weren’t the only ones releasing a budget for the upcoming fiscal year that begins July 1. Several members of the Georgia House Democratic Caucus (GHDC) COVID-19 Subcommittee drafted and released an independent FY21 budget proposal in response to COVID-19.
This budget, committee members say, “places Georgia citizens as the priority, leverages revenue, repurposes tax credits and/or limits and closes corporate welfare loopholes.”
“We worked hard to find an alternative to cutting critical areas such as education and healthcare, especially during these times of COVID-19,” members of the GHDC COVID-19 Subcommittee said in a statement issued Wednesday.
According to information released by the subcommittee, this version of the budget would increase the state’s tobacco tax from 37 cents per pack to the national average of $1.81, as well as include a tax of vaping products that at an equal level could they say could produce over $600 million in additional revenue.
Just prior to the restart of the legislative session Monday, a coalition of more than three dozen groups including the Georgia Budget and Policy Institute think tank, the Latin American Association, the NAACP, Georgia Conservation Voters, Georgia Equality and the League of Women Voters sent Governor Brian Kemp and state lawmakers a letter asking them to support a tobacco tax hike and other measures to mitigate spending cuts.
But House Speaker David Ralston (R-Blue Ridge) said during a briefing Tuesday at the Capitol that he has not heard support from his Republican majority for raising any taxes during the session, including the cigarette tax.
“I am not in favor of raising taxes,” he said. “I believe in cutting taxes not raising them.”
The GHDC said their members “worked to identify additional funding to protect public education and healthcare funding,” and say they researched the budgets of the top 10 state departments to determine ways to minimize the governor’s call for across the board cuts of 11 percent.
According to the caucus’ budget proposal, enough funding was identified to justify maintaining the current level of resources in 10 departments that make up 90 percent of the state budget. Additionally, they said their budget proposal would repeal the Rural Hospital Tax Credit to reallocate $60 million in favor of direct investment in the state’s health care programs and expansion of Medicaid.
