Fail: to disappoint the expectations or trust of; to miss performing an expected service or function for; to be deficient in; to leave undone. – Merriam Webster Dictionary
Any of the preceding definitions of the word “fail” would suffice to describe the performance of Georgia’s state legislature in 2008. By any objective measure, our elected representatives simply didn’t get the job done this year.
Leaders in the Republican-controlled house and senate had four major goals for the 2008 legislative session: to come up with a new water use plan, to reform the tax code and provide major tax relief to Georgians, to resolve the crisis in the funding of the state’s trauma care network, and to find a way to pay for much-needed road improvements throughout the state.
By the time the dust had settled last week, only one of the four items had been successfully addressed and, just as it did last year, the legislature adjourned in a frenzy of childish name-calling and finger-pointing. It seems that our governor Sonny Perdue and his close ally Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle (who presides over the Senate) don’t get along with Speaker of the House Glenn Richardson, and the entire lawmaking process has been more or less held hostage to their feud for the last two years.
Last year the warring parties butted heads over a tax cut that Richardson proposed and Perdue termed fiscally unsound. This year the disputes centered around taxes as well, but they seemed to grow even more personal and petulant.
It all started last summer as Richardson barnstormed the state with an ambitious plan to eliminate all property taxes and replace them with new sales taxes on goods and services. He received a great deal of flack from members of city and county governments and local school boards who would have lost the authority to raise their own revenue under the scheme. The public at large seemed cool to the idea as well, probably because it seemed to represent nothing more than a shift in the methodology used to relieve us of our hard-earned cash.
Ultimately Richardson’s plan died a painful death early in the 2008 session, and the race to come up with new ideas for tax reform was on. The House eventually settled on a proposal to eliminate property taxes on cars while the Senate wanted to cut income taxes. No compromise was ever reached, and plans to fund trauma care and road improvements, which were tied to the tax cuts, also went up in flames.
Richardson is attempting to lay all the blame for this fiasco on Casey Cagle’s doorstep, and he has encouraged Georgians to clamor for Cagle’s removal from office. Cagle claims it was the House leadership that refused to budge. It’s hard to believe that these guys belong to the same party, isn’t it?
If you’re a parent, the bickering probably reminds you of siblings who can’t get along and insist that the other party always starts the fights. I’m sure a lot of Georgians feel like I do and would like tell both men that we don’t want to hear who “started it” and then send them to time out until they learn to get along. Maybe we should just send them to bed without their earmarks.
These men need to remember that good legislators look after the needs and interests of the people who elected them and that compromise and negotiation are a necessary part of the lawmaking process. Their failure to do so reflects poorly on every man and woman in the house and senate, but especially on the men at the top who seem to be the root of the problem. They have embarrassed themselves and the state of Georgia.
Richardson stands for reelection this year. Cagle’s term ends in 2010. Both are rumored to have aspirations for higher office. We can only hope that there are some better choices available to us.
