Wanted: Some courage

You know all that talk we were hearing from economists that the “green shoots” of economic recovery were finally being seen in the depths of this recession? Well, those green shoots seem to have been a little illusory.

The best way to track the health of the local economy is to look at the monthly numbers released by the Georgia revenue department. These revenue collection results can tell you very quickly — at a very fundamental level — whether people are actually going to work again (check the individual income tax collections) and whether consumers are starting to buy more products from Target, Walmart, and other retailers (see the sales tax totals).

The revenue department tally for July, the first month of fiscal year 2010, was very discouraging: overall revenues were down by 9.6 percent from the figures reported for July 2008. Sales tax collections declined by 9.7 percent, individual income taxes were down by 8.4 percent and motor fuel taxes declined by 17.9 percent (an indication that fewer people, including tourists, are driving their vehicles across this great state).

Economic recovery? Not here, not now. Those July numbers are only the latest declines in a year of bad economic news for Georgia. State revenue collections were down by 14.3 percent in January, 34.8 percent in February, 14.5 percent in March, 20.6 percent in April, 14.4 percent in May and 15.7 percent in June.

It appears that state revenues could decline by 10 percent or more in the coming fiscal year since we have a recession that shows no signs of slowing, at least in Georgia. Because the state budget passed by the General Assembly and signed by the governor assumes that revenues will be collected at a higher rate, that means we already have a serious budget deficit that will only get worse as the months go by.

Faced with a situation like this, you would normally expect the legislative leadership to call for a special session of the General Assembly to either adjust tax rates or cut spending in various state programs. In fact, the Georgia constitution quite clearly spells out that the official state budget must be introduced in the House of Representatives, passed by majority vote of the House and Senate, and then sent to the governor for his signature or veto.

Interestingly, the General Assembly leadership (for the moment) has decided it will just ignore that constitutional requirement for the legislative branch to be involved in determining what the state budget will be. There’s been no call for a special session, because lawmakers aren’t going to approve a tax increase with an election year on the horizon and they don’t want to get criticism from their constituents about the fact that even more budget cuts are coming in areas like education, transportation and healthcare.

No, the easiest way around this political dilemma is for the General Assembly to simply turn over its constitutional authority to modify the budget to the executive branch and let Gov. Sonny Perdue (who can’t run for another term) make the budget cuts and take the heat from the citizens.

That’s a real profile in courage for you.

One of the few real powers the General Assembly has is the power to draft the budget. How many times have you heard one of our lawmakers say to a TV reporter during a legislative session, “We oughta just pass a budget and go on home”? Now they don’t even want to perform that basic task.

Here’s a suggestion that will make life even easier for our elected legislators: since some of you have evidently decided to cede your authority (and your reason for existence) to the executive branch, you should go ahead and adopt a resolution next January dissolving the General Assembly as a governing body. That would clear the decks for the passage of a new state constitution officially declaring Georgia to be a monarchy. Really, what’s the difference?