Grassroots Training Coming Up!

• Thursday, Feb. 22, 7:00 p.m., Bartow Co.
• Saturday, March 3, 8:30 a.m., Polk Co.

No training in your area yet? Get together a dozen interested people and we'll bring the training to you! Call AFP Grassroots Coordinator Virginia Galloway at (404) 736-1465 to schedule training in your area or to get details on already scheduled training. Training classes are being added constantly, so stay in touch.

SR 20 Passes Senate Finance Committee, Runs Into Trouble on the Senate Floor

Senate Resolution 5 by Senator David Shafer has been morphed into Senate Resolution 20 and passed the Senate Finance Committee last week. The intention of both resolutions is essentially the same -- to establish a limit on future state government spending based on population growth and inflation. As government-funded programs tend to get birthed but never buried, this would restrain state government from finding projects to fund with "excess" tax dollars in prosperous years.

What would happen to those excess funds? They could be used to build up Georgia's Rainy Day fund, pay down the state's existing debt (which will cost Georgians $329 million just in interest payments this year), or refund the taxpayers.

Finance Committee Chairman Senator Chip Roger is the chief sponsor of the new bill, which changes some provisions and definitions. One change was the measure used for inflation -- the state and local government price index is substituted for the consumer price index.

In addition, the Taxpayer Protection Amendment does not have any override clause until the reserve fund is paid down and the Governor and 2/3rds of the General Assembly pass a "state of emergency" resolution.

All Senators on the Finance Committee, save one, voted for passage. The resolution was put on the calendar by the Rules Committee for a vote on the Senate floor on February 14th. It gained a healthy majority of votes at 34 to 21, but failed to attract the 2/3rds majority needed for a constitutional amendment to pass out of the Senate and move to the House. Please click here to see how your legislator voted.

Although this was a setback, all is not lost. The sponsors plan to move for a vote on reconsideration for SR 20 that would allow for another change to see this monumental piece of legislation passed out of the Senate. Call or e-mail today and urge your legislator to vote for reconsideration and a "yea" vote on passage of SR 20! Visit our online Taxpayer Action Center to contact your State Senator.

Senator Shafter's Senate Bill 12, The Zero Based Budgeting Act, has been assigned to the Appropriations Committee and all signs are positive that this bill will have a hearing soon and move to the floor of the Senate for a vote.

Please stay involved as all of our measures move quickly through the committee and voting processes!

Sincerely,

Jared Thomas
Americans for Prosperity
Georgia Director