i hate liars. want to know what i hate more than liars? legislators who lie. now, i’m sure you’re sitting there thinking, “cady, all politicians are liars. shouldn’t you know that by now?” well, yes i know that. but being flat out lied to is another story.

here in georgia, our state legislators are deciding on a bill that will basically raise taxes. it is being advertised as eliminating property taxes. that sounds fabulous on the surface, but that money has to be made up somehow. according to the enabling legislation, it will raise the current sales tax and add the sales tax to *everything* not being taxed, such as movie and lottery tickets, lawyer fees, etc. and, it won’t eliminate property taxes. it cuts property taxes as a funding source for school systems but leaves it as a way to fund local governments. what the legislators don’t understand is that property taxes are the main source of funding for school systems. take that away and they aren’t left with much. our city school system has already said it will have to close if this bill passes. plus, the one-cent special purpose local option sales tax which is used for special projects, such as to fund the construction of schools and installation of technology, will most likely be eliminated. as local school board members have said, why would residents vote for an additional one-cent tax when the sales tax will be increasing?

and it gets worse. the sales tax money collected locally won’t stay here. it will be sent to atlanta where the state government will disperse it as it sees fit. there’s no telling how much funding each city and county will get.

last week, the original bill was broken out into these two separate bills. the only change was leaving the property tax revenues for local governments. i interviewed one of our local legislators about it and he said, “this would be a tax increase. i don’t want my taxes to increase, so i’m not going to vote for it.”

what did he do today? he voted for it. he lied point blank when i asked him if he would vote for it. that makes me mad. very mad. and i know that this will probably be approved on the november ballot because it’s being advertised as “NO MORE PROPERTY TAXES!”

at least it’s an election year. i think we’ll be seeing all new faces in the bartow county delegation come november.