Under the Dome | Session Update! | Vol. 94
Volume 94
Halfway there (approximately)!
Today marks day 25th of the 40 day legislative session. Let’s take a look at some of the highlights:
SB 476/HB 134
These 2 bills are the exact same bill. The Senate passed this legislation last week and now it goes to the House. The bill would raise the standard deduction in Georgia from $12,000 to $50,000 and from $24,000 to $100,000 for families. This is a huge tax break for most Georgians, actually fully eliminating the state income tax for the majority. What does this mean (in plain English)? You will not pay a dime of income taxes on your family’s first $100,000 in income in Georgia. This, on average, will pay for people’s property tax bill entirely and then some. This is funded via rolling back crony tax credits and does not incur any lost revenue to the state.
The scoop from the Capitol: The House is far less eager to pass this bill, with leadership favoring crony special interests over WE THE PEOPLE. As session advances, we will need to pressure to House to take the people’s side and pass this bill.
SB 477/HB 463
These 2 bills are also the exact same bill. This legislation is more modest in effect. Yet it is also must pass legislation. This is the final year that we have automated statutory tax cuts (albeit at 0.1%, but better than nothing). This bill continues those statutory cuts but at a 5x pace, setting the rate at 4.99% this year and cutting it by half a percentage point each subsequent year. The 4.99% is already accounted for the the Governor’s current revenue estimate so there is no inherent fiscal impact on that basis. Without this legislation, we are pausing our move toward eliminating the state income tax. We need this bill to pass.
The scoop from the Capitol: Negotiations between the House and Senate are likely to set for the concession to be passing only one of the income tax reduction bills (SB 476 and SB 477 or their House bill counterparts) rather than both. Yet passing only one is selling the people of Georgia short. We need both.
HB 54
Last year the Senate passed legislation to bar the use of puberty blockers in children for the purpose of transing their gender. Furthermore, thanks to our failed RINO Attorney General Chris Carr, Georgians are on the hook for the children of state employees going to other states to get transgender surgeries and treatments; so last year the Senate passed legislation to stop this. The House killed both of these measures, primarily the House Public and Community Health Committee Chair Sharon Cooper and Speaker Jon Burns. These people call themselves Republicans? Anyways…the Senate in response has now revived both of these measures by inserting them into HB 54.
We need the House to concur to the Senate amendment on HB 54. The legalese here is a bit jarring, but the exact motion we need made in the House is: “I move that the House agree to the Senate Amendment to the House Amendment to the Senate Substitute to House Bill 54.”
We must get this done, for the sake of all the children being victimized by these vile radical left lunatics.
SB 74
As a refresher, it is currently illegal to distribute obscene materials to minors. Yet our law has the absurd exception of school libraries. The current version (the House version) of SB 74 seeks to rein this in, saying that the immunity does not apply in instances where the local school board voted to remove a book and the librarian refused. The Senate version, however, fully struck the immunity. The Senate version is better, as it never makes sense to distribute this vile content to children. Moments of good faith where the librarian makes an honest error, the Senate version accounted for that, ensuring that was not something we would see prosecuted.
Either way, we would like to see this bill passed. But we much prefer the Senate version.
SB 214
We are still awaiting the final version from the House on SB 214, the election integrity package. One thing is clear: we are moving to hand marked ballots. Great! QR codes will be illegal, with the hand marking being what has to be tabulated. It is undoubtedly true that this moves us in the right direction. As the committee keeps working to improve it, we need them to not water it down.
One way or another, we need an election integrity package going into the 2026 election. It has never been more important.
Good bills!
These are not every good bill out there, but they are some important ones.
HB 211
This bill provides a liability shield for those who use PFAS. The manufacturer would still be liable, yet that is not sufficient. As a strong supporter of the MAHA movement, I agree with Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s long held belief that one should be held accountable for poisoning their fellow citizen. HB 211 is in House Judiciary. It died last year. We need it to die again this year.
SB 9
The Senate has moved to disagree with the House version of this bill, meaning they reverted it back to the Senate version. This bill began in the Senate as a good worthwhile protection of children from AI and using it to do horrible things. The House stripped it out and turned it into a Gavin Newsom-style censorship bill. The Senate has reverted it back to the Senate version. Yet we must be ever-vigilant to ensure the Senate never recedes.
SB 424
Make no mistake, even though SB 424 has been floated as favorable toward gold ownership, the proposal is pro-Big Government, anti-free market, and anti-privacy to its very core. This would be a government takeover of gold and silver. If passed it will spawn a big government scheme that gives Georgia bureaucrats power to manage, oversee, and control the purchase, sale, storage, and use of gold and silver by Georgia citizens. At the same time, SB 424 would put the state government into direct competition with private Georgia businesses in the gold space offering the same services. Some could even be driven out of business. We want government out of the business of regulating gold/silver, not more.
The sponsors of this bill certainly mean well, yet have been mislead. This bill should die.
Etc.
This is certainly not every good or bad bill in the legislature. So look out for more emails from me as I bring you up to speed on what is going on at the state capitol.
From the AFY26 Budget
I would like to expand on our position on the needs-based DREAMS Scholarship program that Governor Kemp is proposing using $325 million of your dollars to fund. The House lowered it to $300 million.
This was designed as a privately funded program. Functionally, we don’t have issue with that. To be honest, what happens with private money really is not our business anyways, as it is not our money. Public money is our money, however, and we have a lot of thoughts on how it should be used. But if people want to help kids go to college in a needs-based manner using private funds, who am I to dictate? So, in sum, our issue here ultimately boils down to the use of public funds.
College tuition has been, for years now, a hot political topic. Everyone tends to agree that K-12 education is within the proper role of our state government, and our state constitution ensures everyone has access to a quality education on that basis. Yet what has long differentiated us from Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren is that they believe that you, the taxpayer, should be forced to pay for adults to attend college. “Free College” they call it, as if anything can truly be free. On those grounds, we oppose using public funds to fund the DREAMS scholarship.
Furthermore, the Zell Miller and HOPE Scholarships have long been a great example of merit-based scholarships. Yet one important caveat is their funding mechanism. The money here does not come from the state’s general fund. Your taxes do not fund it. These are funded via the lottery. If funds are diverted to these from the general fund, we would oppose that too, and we have before. The USG Foundation also says, on their website, “DREAMS will be the need-based answer to HOPE’s merit-based solution.” This might simply be an honest disagreement with some, but we hold the firm view that our society needs to award merit above all else. The best person should always get the job, without regard for immutable characteristics. DREAMS holds philosophically a different view.
As I stated to start, what happens with private money is not our problem nor our business. If someone doesn’t like a philanthropic cause, they don’t have to donate to it. It is really that simple. We acknowledge the great heart behind DREAMS, and we have no issue with it operating on private funds. But we continue to oppose using taxpayer funds for it.
Stay tuned!
Session is heating up as we mark day 19. I will be keeping you updated. Stay tuned!
Thank you Mallory for keeping us informed. We appreciate your work.
Don - Cherokee County