Perdue Needs Stronger Budget Pitch

Walter C. Jones
Morris News Service
The Augusta Chronicle
January 25, 2010

ATLANTA --- If someone could have predicted Haiti's earthquake earlier this month, would anyone have listened?

The question for Gov. Sonny Perdue is whether anyone is listening when he predicts a financial disaster for Georgia. He spent a half-hour Tuesday telling the House and Senate appropriations committees how bad the budget will be next year without raising taxes and user fees in combination with massive cuts. Then for the next three days, his administrators of the state's largest agencies took turns with their same tales of woe.

It would be easiest for him to leave the tough choices to his successor and smile from the rocking chair on his porch back home in Bonaire at the agony, he said.

"Election year or not, if we shirk our responsibility, we will not leave things better for the ones who come after us," he said.

By Friday, some conservative Republicans remained unconvinced.

That's when Rep. Melvin Everson, of Snellville, objected to imposing a few $10 fees on health-department lab tests and boosting the fee for birth certificates from $10 to $15. Everson predicted Perdue will make more speeches to the legislature to make his case.

That's not a certainty.

Perdue passed up the opportunity to deliver his pitch to the entire legislature at once during his State of the State Address. He chose instead to use general terms to compare today's economy with other rough spots in history.

Things were different in his first year when he delivered stump speeches across the state trying to sell tax increases to overcome a comparatively milder budget crunch. He wasn't successful, and he hasn't employed the same vigor pushing any initiative since.

Just last year, he proposed a tax increase. Again, he lost in the legislature.

So this year, he resurrected last year's tax proposal, a 1.6-percent levy on the revenues of all hospitals, health insurance companies and even standalone surgical centers. To that, he included the fees Everson opposed.

Perdue is the first modern governor to face the hostile override of one of his vetoes. He's had marginal success passing his annual legislative agenda.

Just before Perdue released his budget recommendations to reporters Jan. 15, House and Senate appropriations chairmen said they had no idea what it would contain.

Perdue might become more visible hawking predictions of a financial earthquake, and then it will be up to the legislature to decide whether to believe him.


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