Sesión en el pleno del Senado, 12 de febrero de 2026 (día legislativo 18)

Transcripción

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1. 0:21:16

   Good morning, everyone. Good morning.

2. 0:21:22

   The time for convening has arrived. Senate will come to order. All unauthorized visitors, please exit the chamber at this time. I recognize the senator from 6, senator from 6. We probably need a few more senators in here if we're gonna conduct a, a full day.

3. 0:21:41

   Mr. President, it's a good thing you and I are here on time. Otherwise, this place just wouldn't run, would it? I'm sure our colleagues are coming along. They're meeting, fixing the world's problems. Mr. President, the pages are on time, present and accounted for. We got some good ones today. We got Alyssa Calvin from Monroe.

4. 0:22:12

   We have Jason Lynn from Auburn. We have Ava Nord from Williamson. We have Mason Ringsrud from Kennesaw, Preston Salling from Kennesaw, Braxton Slaughter from Flowery Branch, Ayanna Tejani from Lawrenceville, and Stella Warren from Monroe. Y'all give our pages a big round of applause. We appreciate you being here, helping us serve the great people of the great state of Georgia.

5. 0:22:48

   Mr. President, the journal has been read and found to be correct, so I move we dispense with the reading of the journal.

6. 0:22:56

   All right.

7. 0:22:56

   And there's nobody here to object.

8. 0:22:59

   All right. Thank you, Senator, and we once again appreciate all the pages back there. Got a good-looking bunch, and appreciate them being here. Is there objections to dispensing of the reading of the journal? Chair hears none. The reading of the journal is dispensed with. Is there objections to confirmation of the journal? Chair hears none, and the journal is confirmed. All senators who have bills and resolutions to introduce, please bring them to the secretary's desk at this time. First reading of references to Senate bills and resolutions. Mr. Secretary?

9. 0:23:28

   Senate Bill 495 by Senators Harrell of the 40th and others, a bill to be entitled an act to amend Chapter 1 of Title 10 of the Official Code of Georgia Annotated.

10. 0:23:35

    Children and Family.

11. 0:23:36

    Senate Bill 496 by Senators Brass of the 6th and others, a bill to be entitled an act to amend Article 1 of Chapter 36 of Title 30-

12. 0:23:42

    State and Local Government, General

13. 0:23:44

    ... Se- Senate Bill 497 by Senators Dixon of the 45th and others, a bill to be entitled an act to amend Article 16 of Chapter 2 of Title 20-

14. 0:23:50

    Education and Youth

15. 0:23:51

    ... Senate Bill 498 by Senators Dixon of the 45th and others, a bill to be entitled an act to amend Article 3-1-b of Chapter 2 of Title 20.

16. 0:23:59

    Finance.

17. 0:24:00

    Senate Bill 499 by Senators Ginn of the 47th and others, a bill to be entitled an act to amend Article 4 of Chapter 11 of Title 16 of the Official Code-

18. 0:24:07

    Judiciary

19. 0:24:09

    ... Senate Resolution 758 by Senators Williams of the 25th and others, a resolution honoring the lives of correctional officers Christopher Monica and Curtis Billue, and dedicating a road-

20. 0:24:18

    Transportation

21. 0:24:19

    ... Mr. President, that completes the order.

22. 0:24:24

    First reading of references to the House bills.

23. 0:24:28

    House Bill 57 by Representatives Cameron of the 1st and others, a bill to be entitled to amend Code Section 16-6.

24. 0:24:33

    Judiciary.

25. 0:24:34

    House Bill 383 by Representatives Cox of the 28th and others, a bill to be entitled to amend Titles 20 and 39-

26. 0:24:39

    Interstate Cooperations

27. 0:24:40

    ... House Bill 903 by Senators Powell of the 33rd and others, a bill to be entitled an act to amend-

28. 0:24:45

    Judiciary

29. 0:24:47

    ... House Bill 907 by Representative Jones of the 47th and others, a bill to be entitled an act to amend Article 31C-

30. 0:24:52

    Education and Youth

31. 0:24:53

    ... House Bill 986 by Representative Jones of the 25th and others, a bill to be entitled an act to amend Part-

32. 0:24:58

    Science and Technology

33. 0:24:59

    ... House Resolution 251 by Representatives New of the 40th and others, a resolution proposing an amend-

34. 0:25:04

    Judiciary

35. 0:25:04

    ... Mr. President, that completes the order.

36. 0:25:07

    Secretary will read reports of standing committees.

37. 0:25:10

    Mr. President, the Senate Committee on Finance has had under consideration the following legislation and has instructed me to report the same back to the Senate with the following recommendation: Senate Bill 432, due pass by substitute. Senate Bill 446, due pass. Senate Resolution 668, due pass. Respectfully submitted, Senator Hufstetler of the 52nd District, Chairman. Dear Mr. Secretary, pursuant to Rule 2-1.6, I hereby give notice that I will introduce a minority report to be read along with the majority report of Senate Bill 446, which passed out of the Senate Committee on Finance on February 11th, 2026.

38. 0:25:41

    Sincerely, Senator Orrock of the 36th District. Mr. President, the Senate Committee on Government Oversight has had under consideration the following legislation and has instructed me to report the same back to the Senate with the following recommendation: House Bill 485, due pass by substitute. House Bill 377, due pass by substitute. Respectfully submitted, Senator Bearden of the 30th District, Chairman. Mr. President, the Senate Committee on Health and Human Services has had under consideration the following legislation and has instructed me to report the same back to the Senate with the following recommendation: Senate Bill 440, due pass.

39. 0:26:11

    Senate Bill 462, due pass. Respectfully submitted, Senator Watson of the 1st District, Chairman. Mr. President, that completes the order.

40. 0:26:32

    Secretary will read bills and resolutions for a second time.

41. 0:26:36

    Senate Bill 156 by Senator Williams of the 25th and others, retirement. Certain members or former members of the General Assembly to buy into the Georgia Legislative Retirement System, provide. Senate Bill 369 by Senator Still of the 48th and others, Charter Schools Act of 1998, com- com- completion charter schools, provide. Senate Bill 452 by Senator Hatchett of the 50th and others, retirement and pension. Maximum employer contribution to a 401for certain law enforcement officers, increase. Senate Bill 471 by Senator Dolezal of the 27th and others, education. Requires a student to wear a face mask or face covering while present on school property.

42. 0:27:08

    Eliminate automatic re- repeal provision. Mr. President, that completes the order.

43. 0:27:15

    It is now time for the morning roll call. Are there any motions to excuse?

44. 0:27:28

    Motion to excuse. Recognize senator from the 22nd.

45. 0:27:31

    Ask for unanimous consent, Mr. President, to excuse the senator from the 44th and the 33rd for business inside the Capitol.

46. 0:27:37

    44th and 33rd?

47. 0:27:39

    Yes, that's correct, Mr. President.

48. 0:27:40

    Without objection, senators are excused. Recognize the senator from the 29th.

49. 0:27:46

    Mr. President, I ask for unanimous consent to excuse the esteemed senator from the 27th.

50. 0:27:53

    Without objection, senator from the 27th is excused. Recognize the senator from the 38th.

51. 0:27:59

    Mr. President, I ask for unanimous consent to excuse the senator from the 7th for business inside the Capitol.

52. 0:28:06

    Without objection, senator from the 7th is excused. Senator from the 17th, do you have somebody?

53. 0:28:14

    Senator from the 40th.

54. 0:28:18

    Yes, Mr. President, I ask for unanimous consent to excuse the senator from the 5th.

55. 0:28:24

    From the 5th?

56. 0:28:28

    Without objection, the senator from the 5th is excused.

57. 0:28:33

    Recognize the senator from the 17th.

58. 0:28:36

    Thank you very much, Mr. President. I ask for unanimous consent to excuse the senator from the 26th.

59. 0:28:42

    Without objection, senator from the 26th is excused. Recognize the senator from the 52nd.

60. 0:28:47

    Thank you, Mr. President. I ask unanimous consent to excuse the senator from the 49th.

61. 0:28:52

    Without objection, senator from the 49th is excused. Any other motions to excuse?

62. 0:29:00

    Secretary will call the roll. Senators, signify your presence by voting the yeas with. Secretary?

63. 0:30:16

    It is now time for our morning devotion. All senators, please take your seats and cease all conversation. I would ask that the doorkeepers secure the chamber at this time.

64. 0:30:29

    I would like to recognize the Dean of the Senate, senator from the 15th, to lead us in our pledge and introduce our pastor of the day. S- senator?

65. 0:30:41

    Thank you, Mr. President. Uh, let's pay homage to our flag, please.

66. 0:30:45

    Pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

67. 0:30:58

    The Georgia flag.

68. 0:31:00

    I pledge allegiance to the Georgia flag and the principles for which it stands, wisdom, justice, and moderation and courage.

69. 0:31:09

    Good morning, colleagues. I'm really glad to be here today to introduce a fine warrior for God, Reverend David Stallion Sr. He was born in Phenix City, Alabama, and accepted Christ at the age of 10 at Bethlehem Baptist Church. He answered his call to the ministry in 2001, was licensed in 2002, and ordained two years later.

70. 0:31:41

    Reverend Dr. Stallion has served in numerous e- leadership roles, including youth pastor, assistant pastor, and music director, with over 25 years of gospel music and ministry experience. He has earned a Bachelor of Arts in Pastoral Ministry, a Master of Divinity in Discipleship and Church Ministry, and a Doctor of Divinity degree from Frontline Theological Seminary. He also holds certification as Dean of Christian Leadership Schools and serves as a CLS instructor and fourth district president of the GMBC of Georgia Incorporated.

71. 0:32:23

    He has faithfully served in various community and ministerial leadership roles, and currently serves as pastor of Mount Pilgrim Baptist Church in Columbus, Georgia, where he was called in this November of 2015. Reverend Dr. Stallion is married to his wife, Tammy R. Stallion. Let's give her a big round of applause. She's over here.

72. 0:32:49

    Thank you very much. And he and Ms. Stallion has, uh, three children and four grandchildren. Blessings today from Reverend Dr. Stallion. Let's welcome him.

73. 0:33:09

    Well, let me say greetings to all. How good and how pleasant it is for us to gather together in unity. I am excited. I am glad to be here. I don't count it, uh, as one that I would take lightly. I am honored, uh, to have this privilege and this opportunity to stand before you today. It is one that will be a memory that will forever be etched into my heart and into my mind. I do wanna give recognition to the president, as well as, uh, Senator Harbison, and to Minority Leader Huguley for this opportunity to be able to stand as your devotional leader today.

74. 0:33:53

    Uh, she's already been mentioned, but, uh, I wouldn't be where I am today without the one who's beside me, my lovely wife, and I thank her for being with us today.

75. 0:34:06

    James 1:5 says is, "If any of you lack wisdom, you should ask God, who gives you generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you." Uh, in this house, you're often asked to solve complex problems with no easy answers. Uh, this verse reminds us that wisdom isn't just about intellect it's a gift available to those who acts with a humble heart.

76. 0:34:43

    In Matthew chapter 20, 26 through 28, Jesus explains that true greatness is found in serving others, that whoever wants to be a leader among you must be your servant. Leadership is a product of the heart. Guarding your heart ensures you, that you remain faithful to your oath and to the people that you represent.

77. 0:35:13

    Despite political divisions, uh, the goal is to work for the peace and prosperity of the state. And this requires a spirit of cooperation and a focus on the common good rather than personal ambition. Finally, when it comes to accountability, whatever your religious belief or in the spirit of accountability to the citizens of our state, my faith believes in a higher power that has counted us as stewards and will eventually return to us to give accountability of our stewardship.

78. 0:35:59

    Luke chapter 12:42 through 43 says, "And the Lord said, 'Who then is that faithful and wise steward whom his master will make ruler over his household to give them their portion of food in due season?'" He said, "Blessed is that servant whom his master will find so doing when he comes." And that is my ambition. That is my goal in life, that even in what I do in ministry, I simply want to be found faithful, and it is my prayer for this, uh, those of you who make up this House, that you will do the same, not only to whoever you're accountable to, but certainly to the citizens of our great state of Georgia.

79. 0:36:50

    So let us pray.

80. 0:36:55

    Gracious God, we thank you for the privilege of serving this state. We ask for the wisdom of Solomon to navigate today's decisions and the courage of Esther to stand for what is right. Grant these representatives a deep sense of responsibility and a spirit of goodwill. Help them to listen with open hearts, speak with honesty, and prioritize the needs of the vulnerable, the children, the elderly, and those on the margins.

81. 0:37:29

    May their work today lead to a more peaceful and just community for all. We ask this in your name. Amen. Amen. Amen. Appreciate you.

82. 0:42:44

    All right, colleagues, if I could get your attention just a minute. Uh, we're gonna have our in- doctor of the day, but I first wanna thank Ms. Julia Mack that looks after us so good in the back, and she's always, uh, helping us out and, uh, doesn't, uh, want the spotlight. But we appreciate you, Julia, very much. Um, now to introduce the doctor of the day, we have the senator from the 14th.

83. 0:43:13

    Thank you, Mr. President. Colleagues, it's my honor to introduce to you today Dr. Erika Gibson. She's a board-certified OBGYN with the Southeast Permanente Medical Group in Atlanta. She's a native of Chattanooga, Tennessee, graduated from Spelman College with a BA in Spanish, medical degree from UPenn, and OBGYN residency at the Hospital of UPenn. She also received a master's in public health at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health as a Sommer Scholar focused on health policy and reproductive health. Uh, she is currently the chief of women's services at, uh, I believe it's the Southeast Permanente Medical Group, right?

84. 0:43:48

    And helped develop the region's Cocoon pregnancy care model, which is an integrative, multidisciplinary prenatal care model that centers the patient experience and improves outcomes. She's also the clinical and digital lead for women's and children's health at the Kaiser Federation, working to develop and implement digital strategies for this population across Kaiser regions nationally. Appointed to the US Preventative Service Task Force. Uh, she's also very concerned about the maternal health crisis. And folks, I know I make jokes about how often I come up here to present doctors of the day coming from North Fulton County, but it's actually something to think about.

85. 0:44:21

    The reason I'm up here so frequently is 'cause there are so many doctors in the metro Atlanta area, and we do have an urgent need for OBGYNs and all kinds of doctors all across the state, and that's something that Dr. Gibson has been working on. So without further delay, I will be honored to introduce you to Dr. Erika Gibson.

86. 0:44:40

    Thank you. Thank you for that introduction. Um, my name's Erika Gibson, and I practice obstetrics and gynecology here in Atlanta. Um, every day I have the privilege to, of caring for women and families, work that reminds me how important strong, accessible, and high-quality healthcare is to the wellbeing of our community, especially vulnerable populations. Thank you for the work that you do on behalf of Georgia's citizens.

87. 0:45:12

    The decisions here impact lives, and in that we have a shared goal of ensuring that our citizens, my patients, have opportunities to live a healthy and thriving life. I'm happy to be here, um, to support you, so come by and see me. Thanks.

88. 0:45:33

    Thank you. Good job.

89. 0:45:43

    We have special guests with us today that we would like to recognize.

90. 0:46:15

    The secretary will read the resolution.

91. 0:46:20

    Senate Resolution 695 by Senators Halpern of the 39th and others com- a resolution commending the Georgia Aquarium on its 20th anniversary and for other purposes. Whereas Georgia Aquarium opened in 2005 as a philanthropic gift to the City of Atlanta, made possible through the generosity and vision of the late Bernie Marcus, and has since become one of Georgia's most beloved cultural institutions, welcoming millions of guests and inspiring curiosity, stewardship, and a lasting appreciation for the ocean. And whereas Georgia Aquarium stands as one of the, the State of Georgia's most significant tourist attractions, drawing visitors from around the nation and the world.

92. 0:46:51

    Now therefore, be it resolved by the Senate that the members of this body congratulate the Georgia Aquarium on the occasion of its 20th anniversary and commend its enduring leadership in education, animal care, inclusion, and conservation. Mr. President, that completes the order.

93. 0:47:06

    Is there ab- objection to the adoption of the resolution? The chair hears none, and the resolution is adopted.

94. 0:47:23

    I'd like to call upon the senator from the 39th District for the purpose of introducing our special guest.

95. 0:47:31

    Thank you, Mr. President, and good morning, colleagues. It is my profound honor today to recognize the 20th anniversary of the Georgia Aquarium. Since its opening in 2005, which was made possible through the vision and generosity of Bernie Marcus, the aquarium has grown into one of Georgia's most important cultural and educational institutions, and one of the strongest anchors for tourism and economic activity in Downtown Atlanta. Every year, families, students, and visitors from across our state and around the world walk through their doors.

96. 0:48:07

    They experience world-class exhibits, immersive galleries, and science-based storytelling that help people understand aquatic life and the responsibility we all share in it, in protecting it. The aquarium also plays a meaningful role in classrooms across Georgia. Its field experiences and outreach programs expand hands-on STEM learning and make science real and accessible for students in every corner of our state, not just here in Metro Atlanta. Behind the scenes, the Georgia Aquarium really is a leader in animal care, rescue, and conservation.

97. 0:48:44

    Its staff and partners advance research, respond to urgent animal rescues, and apply cutting-edge science to protect threatened spir- species and restore critical habitats, work that expands and reaches far beyond Georgia. Just as importantly, the aquarium has made inclusion and accessibility a core part of its mission. The aquarium's community impact is also deeply human and personal. Through its Veterans Immersion Program, now extended to children from Children's Healthcare of Atlanta and patients at Shepherd Center, participants experience therapeutic dives that offer healing, confidence, and connection in truly unforgettable ways.

98. 0:49:28

    I wanna recognize four leaders who represent the people behind this work who are with me today. Travis Burke, the president and CEO, Paige Hale, Dan DePia- Piazzo, and Elaine Albers. This anniversary marks more than 20 years of success. It really reflects 20 years of leadership in education, conservation, accessibility, and community partnership, and they are certainly not done yet. So on behalf of the Senate, I'm proud to commend the Georgia Aquarium for its lasting impact on Atlanta and on the people of Georgia, and to congratulate them on 20 years of service to our state, and I invite President and CEO Travis Burke to address us now.

99. 0:50:13

    Thank you.

100. 0:50:13

     Thank you very much.

101. 0:50:16

     Thank you very much, Senator. Thank you very much, uh, senators. Uh, and to the representatives, thank you very much. I am Travis Burke, president and CEO of Georgia Aquarium. We are grateful for this recognition of our 20th anniversary and of the impact that we have had with you on the City of Atlanta and the great State of Georgia. Georgia Aquarium is a nonprofit organization, and our mission relies on connecting millions of guests annually, thousands of donors, and by garnering bipartisan support.

102. 0:50:49

     Our past two decades have been filled with remarkable achievements, including bringing the ocean to nearly 45 million guests. By welcom- welcoming them through our gates, we have generated tourism dollars and been a key economic driver for the downtown area. Now, this would not have been possible without the generosity and vision of Bernie, and to you, our elected officials, so thank you very much. As we look ahead, we remain committed to our core mission of inspiring awareness and preservation of aquatic ecosystems at home, globally, and providing meaningful connections to the ocean for all.

103. 0:51:28

     We are proud to be a Georgia institution and help bring millions of guests to the great State of Georgia. I wanna invite you all to visit Georgia Aquarium and be a part of our next 20 years. Thank you again for this incredible recognition and continued support.

104. 0:51:50

     Yeah, we're very, very proud of the Georgia Aquarium and what it means to our state and economic development, tourism, and education. Thank y'all.

105. 0:52:39

     We're happy to rec- recognize more special guests today. Uh, the secretary will read a resolution. Senate Resolution 597 by Senators Orrock of the 36th and others. A resolution recognizing and commending Dana Craft on her outstanding public service as the executive director of Feeding Georgia and for other purposes. Whereas she has diligently and conscientiously devoted innumerable hours of her time, talents, and energy toward the betterment of her community and state as evidenced dramatically by her superlative 15 years of service with Feeding Georgia.

106. 0:53:10

     And whereas Dana has served with honor and distinction, and her vision and unyielding commitment to Feeding Georgia will be sorely missed upon the occasion of her retirement. And now therefore be it resolved by the Senate that the members of this body recognize and commend Dana Craft for her efficient, effective, unselfish, and dedicated public service to the state of Georgia, congratulate her upon the grand occasion of her retirement, and extend the most sincere best wishes for her continued health and happiness. Mr. President, I complete your order. Is there objection to the adoption of the resolution? Chair hears none and the resolution is adopted.

107. 0:53:44

     I'd like to call on the senator from the 36th District to introduce our special guest, and I would ask you to give her your attention please and keep the chamber reasonably quiet.

108. 0:53:59

     Thank you, Mr. President. Uh, colleagues, it gives me, uh, a great pleasure today to bring to you this resolution honoring Dana Craft on the occasion of her retirement. Uh, I have known Dana for more than a few years. She is leaving 15 years of heading up Feeding Georgia as the executive director. When I knew her, she was a banker and a constituent, uh, in, uh, Morningside.

109. 0:54:36

     She has always brought diligence, dedication, and her heart to whatever work she pursued, whatever task she undertook. Uh, but I would say, uh, it's accurate to say that, uh, Dana found her passion when she moved into the space of Feeding Georgia. And many of you know her without realizing it because she stepped up, uh, when we began to change the structure of our Wild Hog Supper.

110. 0:55:07

     She helped, uh, craft it and shape the path that it took. Uh, a- and, and Feeding Georgia b- b- um, b- became, uh, the entity that, uh, worked with the ag department, worked with our agricultural commissioner, uh, to remake the Wild Hog into what it is today. And it's, it's still crowded, it's still delicious, but it's also doing great good around the state, uh, for families that are challenged, uh, in, in, uh, uh, m- uh, m- uh, meeting their food needs.

111. 0:55:44

     She did it with a smile. She did it no matter how big the crowds were. Every year, there was a new, uh, innovation. Uh, every year it worked, uh, more and more smoothly. And so I say to you, everybody in this chamber has been directly and indirectly, uh, touched by the leadership that she gave this work for so many years. Uh, and it, it, uh, could not please me more than to recognize her as she takes her retirement.

112. 0:56:16

     Uh, I- I'm sure we'll be hearing from her what her next, uh, thing that she's, uh, engaging with. But the folks that are still at Feeding Georgia and are, are here with us today, I wanna recognize as well, because they are, they have picked up the torch and will continue to move forward in this, in this work of, uh, meeting the challenges that family are having in putting food on their table all across our great state. Uh, we have, uh, the new executive director of Feeding Georgia, Julie Koukunall.

113. 0:56:50

     We have their manager of corporate partnerships and marketing, Sophia Jackson.

114. 0:56:57

     Cheyenne Kellogg and Megan Middleton, who many of us have known for a long time as well, who's the director of communit- of government affairs here at the Atlanta Community Food Bank. The food, the Food Bank network spreads across the state and plays a vital role. Uh, I'm so happy to, uh, present this resolution to Dana Craft for the pivotal role that she has played, uh, the years of service that she has already dedicated to this, uh, laudable mission.

115. 0:57:28

     Uh, Dana, would you come forward, please?

116. 0:57:34

     Thank you so much. I am so grateful for this recognition. I've been-- It's been the privilege of my lifetime to do meaningful work and to do it with great public servants like you, Senator- Oh ... and with everyone in this chamber, and in this building, and the, the great state employees that administer programs that help the most vulnerable families in our state. So thank you so much. I'm blessed by this and really appreciate the recognition.

117. 0:58:04

     Well deserved. Thank you so much.

118. 0:58:10

     Good, good work. John, always good to see you. Neil, get a picture with him. This is Governor Jones. Yeah. Look forward to working with you.

119. 0:59:56

     Are there any unanimous consents? Does any senator wish to rise on a point of personal privilege?

120. 1:00:08

     Senator from the 42nd. I think you're it, Senator. We got fif- we got 1,500 statewide candidates in here, and, and you're the only one that wants to talk.

121. 1:00:18

     The only one. If I go fast, we can move on, right? Um, two things. First off, on Tuesday, as just shared, Chair, come with another announcement for you. The Council of Superior Court Judges have a legislative appreciation breakfast, so your superior court judges will be here on the second floor in 230 on Tuesday morning from 8:30 to 10. Go by and see them. I also rise today to celebrate New Americans Day here at the State Capitol. This is something we celebrate for the past 13 years, is we recognize our long history of extending a welcome to new Americans from around the world in our state.

122. 1:00:54

     Today, 11% of Georgians, more than 1.2 million people, are foreign-born. They contribute over $15 billion to our federal, state, and local taxes in our state, and represent $44 billion in spending power. And today, we celebrate our history as a state of welcoming immigrants and a place where Georgia continues to be a place where folks can come through our immigration process and bring their families to the best state in the country for families, to raise a family. And joining us in the gallery today, we have students from the Georgia Village product, and also their teacher, Mr.

123. 1:01:27

     Crispin. Are y'all still up here? We all rise if you are. Well, still wanna recognize and appreciate y'all being here at the State Capitol with us today. Thank you, Mr. President.

124. 1:01:38

     Thank you, Senator. I recognize the senator from the 10th.

125. 1:01:54

     Thank you, um, Mr. President. I rise today to talk about a topic that's been near and dear to me for a very long time, and that's a topic surrounded around affordability. You know, there's an article in today's AJC that I just kinda share with you that was authored by my good friend, former CEO of DeKalb County, Michael Thurmond, and it kinda steps through the history of Georgia. But one of the things that I noticed in this particular article is that it said that Georgia was a colony that was planned as an asylum for the unfortunate, where England's worthy poor could earn a living exporting products from small fa- farms.

126. 1:02:38

     Oversight and the trustees sought to resolve socioeconomic problems troub- troubling 18th century British society. Farmland boundaries and industries, technological advances had left tens of thousands of Britons unemployed and desolate. So when I think about this, this is, kinda reminds me that Georgia really was the original affordability colony. But when you fast-forward to today, you see that Georgia's ranking really has an uphill struggle in many different areas.

127. 1:03:13

     For 12 consecutive years, Georgia has earned the distinction of the top state to do business, and that distinction has been earned from several area magazines. Georgia has been known as one of the most friendly places in the country to do business, yet when you look a little bit deeper in the numbers, you see that Georgia ranks 30th out of the all 50 states in terms of the cost of living. WalletHub ranks Georgia 41st amongst the states to raise a family.

128. 1:03:48

     Georgia ranks 39th in overall child well-being. We fell two spots, by the way, after approving, improving the seven previous years, which researchers called a troubling reversal. Georgia's maternal mortality rate is among the nation's highest, 37 per nine deaths per 100,000 live births, with 87% of deaths deemed preventable. And somebody should hear that message again.

129. 1:04:21

     87% of deaths deemed preventable. Most tragically, Georgia's infant mortality rate hovers above the national average of 7.1 per 1,000 live birth, with stark disparities based on race and religion. But did you know that Georgia founders envisioned our state as an experiment in both economic development and social welfare reform? So I say to you that as we debate bills today, particularly Senate Bill 476, let us remind us, let me remind you that 476 will create an affordability apocalypse in our state's budget.

130. 1:05:08

     I'm not gonna stand here before you and go through all of the numbers. Let's just say that that particular bill, 476, has sought to repeal low-income tax credits, redefined affordability, affordable housing tax credit, and cuts values to 50%, repeal agribusiness and rural jobs tax credit, and the list goes on and on and on. S- somebody who want a full list, come and see me. I'll share it with you.

131. 1:05:39

     Thank you, Mr. President. I yield this morning.

132. 1:05:49

     Recognize senator from the 34th.

133. 1:06:11

     Thank you, Mr. President. Colleagues, I rise to recognize the Georgia Federation of Democratic Women for their longstanding commitment to civil engagement and public service across our state through voter education, community outreach, and leadership development. Membership continues to strengthen participation through democracy, encouraging Georgians, especially our women, to step to the front and lead. To the officers, local chapters, advocates with us today, thank you for working year-round to support communities to help ensure that the voices, the pathways are heard.

134. 1:06:49

     If you're in the gallery, please stand to be recognized. And also wanna recognize the local chapter in Fayetteville. Thank you for being here.

135. 1:07:03

     Recognize the senator from the 35th.

136. 1:07:21

     All right. Thank you, Mr. President. Uh, good morning, everyone. Um, I hope that you keep your eyes open because we have yellow ties and scarves all over the Capitol today. So today is the Georgia Dental Association Day at the Capitol, so y'all give it up to all your favorite dentists. Let me just hear it. I'm going to ask at this time for all of our dentists, part of the GDA, please stand up where you are.

137. 1:07:51

     And, uh, senators, it would be wise for you for your next checkup to kinda make a little eye contact and let them know we're friendly, uh, because you may have to be in their chair soon and you want them to be gentle. So y'all give it up for your dentists, please.

138. 1:08:09

     Um, thank you. You may be seated. Um, as you know, as dentists, and I mentioned to the group earlier, we have a unique skill of being meticulously, meticulously careful, and we pay a lot of attention to very small things. But we also understand how that very, very, very small thing fits into a very big picture. And in politics, we need more of that. So thank you so much to all of our highly trained, uh, amazing dentists who are here in our offices and our staff and everybody who's taking great care of us.

139. 1:08:43

     We try to take care of you. So, uh, again, thank you for your time.

140. 1:08:52

     Thank you, Senator. And we greatly appreciate the Dental Association and everything they do. Appreciate all its members being down here today. They do a good job of representing their industry.

141. 1:09:07

     Senator from the 50th.

142. 1:09:22

     Thank you, Mr. President. I rise today on a point of personal privilege to recognize an important organization. But before I do that, I just wanna thank my colleagues. Yesterday, we had a scare in my family and it was, uh, it really meant a lot for those that reached out to me on both sides of the aisle. Uh, wanna report Hazel's doing much better. And also wanna thank you guys for a bill that we passed that allowed all school teachers and nurses to have those badges, uh, which they can press in an emergency situation. Uh, yesterday when, when, when it happened, the, the school nurse was able to hit her button and within seven minutes EMTs were there.

143. 1:09:59

     So it was a, a blessing. So just thank y'all for that. Um, and just wanna report Hazel's doing much better. Uh, but I also rise today to, uh, recognize the YMCA. The YMCA is celebrating 175 years. The first YMCA in Georgia was established in 1855 in Savannah. And today there are 2,600 YMCAs across the countries that serve more than 10,000 communities. I'm sure you have one in your neck of the woods, but just wanna recognize them on 175 years and welcome them to the chamber if they're here.

144. 1:10:34

     Um, and with that, Mr. President, I'll yield the floor.

145. 1:11:53

     Recognize the senator from the 24th.

146. 1:12:14

     Mr. President, we have a birthday girl on the floor today. Mr. President, we have a birthday girl on the floor today. Ms. Paradise. Ms. Paradise, raise your hand.

147. 1:12:31

     Yay.

148. 1:12:31

     Let's wish Ms. Paradise a happy birthday.

149. 1:12:35

     Happy birthday. All right.

150. 1:12:39

     Thank you. She won't tell us how old she is. She's given us the same age the last five years, Senator, so, uh, but happy birthday. She does a great job for us. Recognize the senator from the 26th.

151. 1:13:08

     Thank you, Mr. President. I am so excited today because we have our future with us, our young people from Cobb County.

152. 1:13:46

     We have the Mapleton student body, and that's South Cobb High School and Mapleton High School. So thank you. Please stand. And also we have, I think they already went out, from Douglas County, Reach Back. Are you still here? And please stand. And please, senators, give them a warm welcome. This is most of them first time here in the state capital. We thank you for being here with us today, and I look forward to meeting each and every one of you very soon.

153. 1:14:21

     Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the will.

154. 1:15:33

     Here we go. You have before you today a consent calendar of privileged resolutions. Does any senator wish to remove a resolution from the consent calendar? Is there objection to the adoption of the resolution on the consent calendar? Chair hears none. The resolution on the consent calendar are adopted.

155. 1:15:58

     Recognize senator from the 6th for a motion.

156. 1:16:14

     Mr. President, I ask for unanimous consent that SB 282 be withdrawn from the Committee on Insurance and Labor and be committed to the Committee on Agriculture and Consumer Affairs.

157. 1:16:25

     Secretary, read the caption.

158. 1:16:29

     Senate Bill 282 by Senator Goodman of the 8th and others. A bill to be entitled An Act to Amend Part 2 of Article 15 of Chapter 1 of Title 10 of the Official Code of Georgia Annotated, the Fair Business Practices Act of 1975 so as to provide requirements for earned wage access services, to provide for fees that may be charged for such services, to provide for prohibitions, to provide for consumer protections, to provide that earned wages access payments are non-recourse, to provide that earned wages access services shall not be considered lending activity or money transmission, to provide for definitions, to provide for applicability, to provide for related matters, to repeal conflicting laws, and for other purposes.

159. 1:17:03

     Mr. President, that completes the order.

160. 1:17:10

     Is there objection?

161. 1:17:13

     All those in favor of the motion?

162. 1:17:20

     There is no objection, and so it's removed.

163. 1:17:28

     Recognize Majority Leader for a motion.

164. 1:17:32

     Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the following bills be engrossed, SB 476, SB 477, HB 134, and HB 463.

165. 1:17:44

     Secretary, read the caption.

166. 1:17:51

     Senate Bill 476 by Senator Tillery of the 19th and others, a bill to be entitled An Act to Amend Title 33 and Title 48 of the Official Code of Georgia Annotated relating to insurance and revenue and taxation respectively so as to reduce the personal income tax rate, to provide for related matters, to provide for an effective date and applicability, to provide for a short title, to repeal conflicting laws, and for other purposes. Mr...

167. 1:18:13

     Senate Bill 477 by Senator Tillery of the 19th and others, a bill to be entitled An Act to Amend Article 2 of Chapter 7 of Title 48 of the Official Code of Georgia Annotated relating to the imposition, rate, computation, exemptions, and credit, credits relative to income taxes so as to reduce the personal income tax rate, to revise provisions relative to annual reductions of the income tax, to reduce the rates of taxation on corporate and partnership income, to increase the amount of the standard deduction from state taxable income for individuals, to provide for related matters, to provide for an effective date and applicability, to repeal for, for conflicting laws, and for other purposes.

168. 1:18:46

     House Bill 134 by Representatives Kemp of the 135th and others, a bill to be entitled An Act to Amend Title 48 of the Official Code of Georgia Annotated relating to revenue and taxation so as to provide for definitions, to revise and expand the sales tax exemption for manufactured homes, to provide for a sunset date, to provide for legislative findings, to provide for related matters, to provide for an effective date, to repeal conflicting laws, and for other purposes. House Bill 463 by Senator, Representatives Blackmon of the 146th and others, a bill to be entitled An Act to Amend Part 1 of Article 2 of Chapter 5 of Title 48 of the Official Code of Georgia Annotated relating to tax exemptions so as to provide for a statewide homestead exemption from ad valorem taxes for certain senior citizens who volunteer with local governments, an amount to be determined by such local governments, to provide for definitions, to specify the terms and conditions of the exemption and the procedures relating thereto, and for other purposes.

169. 1:19:37

     Mr. President, that completes the order.

170. 1:19:44

     Majority Leader has moved. Is there objection?

171. 1:19:46

     Objection.

172. 1:19:50

     You want him to have first objection? Okay. We'll let him have it. Would you like to speak to the motion, Majority Leader? Would you like to speak to the objection? Recognize senator from the 2nd.

173. 1:20:10

     Thank you, Mr. President. This morning, colleagues, uh, the minority caucus, we do rise in opposition to the engrossment of these four pieces of legislation, considering that they were introduced, uh, in such a late hour on Friday, the weekend of the Super Bowl, and are such a, a large impact to how we finance and operate this state. They've moved out of committee in just under an hour, and these pieces of legislation are of great impact to Georgians.

174. 1:20:40

     And we believe, and I do feel, that there should have been a much larger, more robust debate to allow for public comment and testimony on legislation that will impact every single Georgian from all 159 counties. And now that we have moved them to engrossment, the minority caucus is yet again excluded, uh, from participating or negotiating, uh, in how these bills will impact our state. And I would like to add, Mr. President, we were not at the table to negotiate any of these bills and how they will impact Georgians.

175. 1:21:12

     And so it is to say that the majority party will decide everything for the state. And so for those of us who represent other constituencies, our constituencies and what they're going through and what they may experience and what their financial hardships are, really don't matter because you got it figured out. The majority party has it all figured out. Uh, and I would just close with this, Mr. President, if affordability is gonna be on the table, y'all been in charge for 20 years, things have gotten a lot more expensive, so maybe you should bring the minority caucus to the table so we could work collectively and work to- work together to find a solution that would benefit all Georgians.

176. 1:21:44

     And so with that, Mr. President, we object to the engrossment of these pieces of legislation, and we do so very proudly this morning. So with that, Mr. President, I yield the floor.

177. 1:22:00

     Senator has yielded. Recognize the majority leader. What purpose do you rise? Mr. President, I wanna make a short amendment to my motion, uh, that HB 134 and HB 463 not be engrossed in this vote since they are already engrossed.

178. 1:22:51

     Now I recognize the majority leader again. Mr. President, I withdraw my, uh, motion to engross. You withdraw your motion to engross. Is there objection? That objection is granted. Recognize the majority leader. Mr. President, I make a motion that we engross SB 476 and SB 477. SB 476 and SB 477. Secretary, re-read the caption.

179. 1:23:29

     Senate Bill 476 by Senator Tillery of the 19th and others. A bill to be entitled an act to amend Title 33 and Title 48 of the Official Code of Georgia Annotated relating to insurance and revenue and taxation respectively so as to reduce the personal income tax rate and for other purposes. Senate Bill 477 by Senators Tillery of the 19th and others. A bill to be entitled an act to amend Article 2 of Chapter 7 of Title 48 of the Official Code of Georgia Annotated relating to the imposition, rate, computation, exemptions, and credits relative to income taxes so as to reduce the personal income tax rate and for other purposes.

180. 1:24:00

     Mr. President, that completes the order. Just for clarification so the body knows, the House bills were already engrossed from last year. They carried over into here. So we were engross- now engrossing just the Senate bills. Noted. We will note the objection from the senator from the 2nd and him speaking for his position. And now we're open for anyone else who'd like to speak for his or her position. I recognize the senator from the 26th.

181. 1:24:31

     Thank you, uh, Mr. Governor. Uh, 476 changes the credits for affordable housing. Isn't it true that i- over the last year I had a older community with an elementary school and the housing stock was bad?

182. 1:25:05

     I- And it also further true that under this housing credit we're building 65 units of affordable housing in that neighborhood that will affect the children's attendance at L.H. Williams Elementary School in Macon.

183. 1:25:34

     Engrossing does not give us the opportunity to amend, have a discussion about it, or anything. So unfortunately, I will have to withdraw my support for this bill. Senator knows his district the best, knows Bibb County well.

184. 1:26:07

     Recognize the senator from the 55th.

185. 1:26:15

     Mr. President, I too must submit my great disappointment that the s- people of Georgia will not be able to debate and discuss such a fundamental change in the way we will do business. We have attracted business here with tax credits. One of the things in addition to affordable housing, that's the only thing that we have. There are people losing their homes, there are people that are homeless, and there are people needing a place, affordable housing, a place to live, and that is one of the few tools that we have.

186. 1:26:58

     We are talking about getting rid of these without the greatest tool that we have called democracy, the ability to hear the other side disagree and then vote it down. But we are not allowed to debate, and I'm, I'm real disappointed in this. Senator, Senator, you're allowed to come to the well and state your opinion and accept questions from this body. So we can debate it as long as you'd like to debate it, Senator.

187. 1:27:28

     So just come on down to the well.

188. 1:27:47

     Mr. President, and I say it is a great honor to even be able to come to this well to make a statement. But when we cannot amend a bill that comes before us and fundamentally change the way we do business here in Georgia, I dare say we are not able to go to the, to go to the issue of making this state one of the greatest places to do business and not amend this, this, this, this, this bill.

189. 1:28:21

     When we cannot a- amend to address affordable housing, as the distinguished senem- gentleman from the 26th stated, using one of the tools to have housing here, affordable housing, I dare say we are going a step backwards on this election year. If we cannot address the tax on films, there's a reason we see Made in Georgia here.

190. 1:28:53

     There's a reason Tyler Perry is here. There's a reason that Georgia is now the new Hollywood. If we lose that, we lose a tax base. We lose billions of dollars that are flowing into this place, and many of us who took part in passing that did not understand the ramifications. But if you go to the movies right now, you will see Made in Georgia, and all that goes away because, and we won't have an opportunity to address that. I just think that not just rural hospitals, not just credit for veterans, not just research headquarters, not just port a- port activity tax credit, foster care tax credit.

191. 1:29:38

     There are so many that we won't have an opportunity to, to make provision for if we engross this bill. Thank you so much. Y- you do have questions, Senator. I sure, I'm, I'm sure, and I, and I, the distinguished gentleman from the 19th, I do yield. I recognize the senator from the 19th. Thank you, Mr. President. Senator, you yield? I do yield, sir. I wanna make sure I understand your problem with Senate Bill 476 and why you don't want it to be engrossed. You have a problem because it addresses film tax credits?

192. 1:30:09

     I have a problem because I won't be able to amend this bill. That's the problem I have. And in my amendment, I won't be able to, uh, debate it. That's the problem I have. So you wanna keep the film tax credits? Sir, um, the way I understand 476,

193. 1:30:30

     which I don't have it with me be- He gave me his reason why he wanted to be my ghost. This is fun. The senator, senator, I thought that you said the reason you didn't want it to be engrossed is because you wanted to protect the film tax credit. If someone were to show you that the film tax credit is not addressed in Senate Bill 476, would it change your opinion on engrossment? Well, I may want to protect the film by doing an amendment, and unfortunately, I'm not on your distinguished, uh, your distinguished committee to have, uh, the type of, uh, input.

194. 1:31:08

     I'm just one of 56, but I must stand and not allow this to go unchallenged. Will the senator yield for a final question? Yes, sir. Senator, I just wanted to say, I thought you said that the reason you wanted to avoid engrossment is so you could protect the film tax credit, so I wanted to make sure you knew that it's not addressed in Senate Bill 476, it's not reduced, and then give you opportunity to just cons- to consider whether or not that changes your mind.

195. 1:31:36

     There's a fundamental problem with engrossment where we can't af- uh, do amendments, but I respect that, and I, I respect the, the s- the senator from the 19th because you've done great work. It's just that some of us are not a part of that committee, and there are ramifications that are unforeseen, and when we cannot do amendments, um, it is a fundamental affront to democracy. Thank you very kindly. Thank you for your kind comments on my hard work. Senator's yielded.

196. 1:32:07

     Recognize the majo- recognize the ma- recognize the majority leader.

197. 1:32:18

     All right, y'all. And to my dear friend from Savannah,

198. 1:32:24

     we're debating engrossment and we got folks coming down here who wanna be a little bit disingenuous because we did have a special committee on eliminating the, the, uh, income tax that's been going on since, like, the early fall. And last time I checked, minority caucus members were on that committee. They had every opportunity to raise the issue, say the things you don't like, which I think there was a little bit of that, but this has been going on for months and months and months and months. So to come down here and say you didn't have a chance to read it, look at it, think about it, or anything else is totally just not true.

199. 1:33:02

     So I ask the Senate to go ahead and vote green on engrossment, and let's get on with the debate. I'm sure we're gonna be here till dinner time at the rate we're going. And, uh, we, we can both, both sides are gonna get an ar- get an opportunity to really demonstrate who stands with the people of Georgia. So let's put it up on the board and get it done. Thank you, Mr. President.

200. 1:33:28

     So would you like to speak against engrossment, Senator, or would you like to speak just against the bill in general?

201. 1:33:46

     S- Senator, uh, leader, senator from the 41st, y'all come here real quick. Could you...

202. 1:35:28

     All right. So h-

203. 1:35:33

     so the motion was on engrossment for Senate Bill 476 and 477. There's objection. We've already had debate over it, and I know we wanna continue to debate these, but we're gonna go ahead and debate them after we do a vote on whether to engross or not. So all those in favor of engrossment will vote yay. All opposed, nay. Secretary, unlock the machine.

204. 1:37:18

     On the motion to engross, the yays are 31, the nays are 21, and the motion has prevailed.

205. 1:37:33

     Moving on to the rules calendar. Senate Bill 476. Secretary, read the caption.

206. 1:37:48

     Senate Bill 476 by Senators Tillery of the 19th and others. A bill to be entitled an act to amend Title 33 and Title 48 of the Official Code of Georgia Annotated relating to insurance and revenue and taxation respectively so as to reduce the personal income tax rate to provide for related management, to provide for an effective date and applicability to provide a short title to repeal conflicting laws and for other purposes. Mr. President, the Senate Committee on Finance recommends that this bill do pass. Senator Hufstetler of the 52nd, chairman. Minority report's been attached. Mr. President, a minority report has been attached.

207. 1:38:20

     Oh. The minority- Back in place, Your Honor.

208. 1:38:25

     Back in place, Your Honor. Recognize senator from the 19th.

209. 1:39:23

     I think my mic's not live yet. So we're just threading on it. Thank you, Mr. President, members of the Senate. I rise to present to you first Senate Bill 476. Let's talk about how we got here. The people outside this building, and inside it now too, said that affordability is the word of the session. You've heard that from the House, you've heard that from the majority caucus, you've heard it from the minority caucus.

210. 1:39:56

     And why is that so? Well, folks in the middle class, they feel like they're being squeezed out. They're watching the cost of their power bills increase six times in the past two years. They're watching the cost of groceries explode. They've seen rent increase.

211. 1:40:21

     They've seen gas prices rise. And they're trying to figure out how they make ends meet. The only thing that's not rising as fast as their costs is their wages. And as a government, we now sit here and hear people literally screaming for leadership to address the needs they need most, and that's affordability. The Senate heard that cry, and this summer appointed a study committee to look at how we best could address those costs.

212. 1:40:59

     See, the state doesn't collect a property tax. The biggest portion of people's income that the state takes is through our income tax. So what way could we best

213. 1:41:11

     Send money back to the folks who sent it to us in the first place? Well, that's by adru- adjusting our income tax rate. And for in Georg- here in Georgia for years now, we've done that. We had a state income tax rate of 6%. We dropped it to 5.75, 5.49, 5.39. We now sit at 5.19%. And there's a proposal before you from the governor's office that sits on 476 as well to drop that state income tax rate another 40 basis points to 4.99%.

214. 1:41:47

     But what does that do to the average Georgia family? In order to understand that, we first have to understand what the a- who the average Georgia family is. The average Georgia worker makes $47,000 a year. The average Georgia family makes $71,000 a year. If we're going to take and give them a 40 basis point reduction, well, that only ends up being for that average worker, call him making $50,000 a year, about 100 bucks.

215. 1:42:20

     If there's 24 pay periods in a year, then that means we're giving them roughly the cost of a cup of coffee if all we do is drop Georgia's income tax rate another 40 basis- 20 basis points. So the Senate started studying this in the off season and said, "We've got to be able to do better." Allowing someone making $50,000 enough savings that they can buy a cup of coffee every other week simply is not enough if the real issue we're trying to address is affordability.

216. 1:42:53

     So we started studying this further and said, "Well, maybe, maybe instead we should drop the income tax rate instead of 20 basis points an entire percent. What would that do for that family?" Well, turns out that would give them about $200 a year. That would give them about $20 maybe per pay period. It's better than we were, but it's still barely enough to buy fast food for them and their child at current market rates.

217. 1:43:27

     Addressing the issue of affordability is more than putting a cup of coffee in somebody's hand every two weeks. It's more than allowing them to go buy a number one at McDonald's and maybe a number one for their child as well. We think the people of Georgia demand something more. To drop that income tax rate 1% from 4.99 to 3.99 would cost the state of Georgia revenue-wise about $3 billion. So the Senate study committee that had Republicans and Democrats on it voted favorably to propose something different.

218. 1:44:01

     They said, "Hey, if we're gonna take and walk the state income tax rate down from 5% to 4.99 to wherever we go from there..." I've described it like a Subway sandwich. We're eating that Subway sandwich from one side. What if we instead turned and went to the other side of that Subway sandwich and started eating the sandwich from the other side by increasing the standard deduction? What would that mean for Georgians instead at that same $3 billion per fiscal year level? And the answer is quite con- res- astounding, actually.

219. 1:44:34

     For $3 billion in a fiscal year, instead of just giving somebody $4 per pay period, we could actually exempt the first $50,000 of wages for every Georgia taxpayer. That means if they were making... If they were married filing jointly, you could exempt the first $100,000 for every Georgia taxpayer. And some folks who don't deal in tax policy like we do every day go, "Well, what does an exemption of my first 50 or $100,000 mean?" Well, here's what it means.

220. 1:45:07

     If you're making a million dollars, well, you'd only pay taxes on 900,000 if you're a married family filing jointly. If you're making 500,000, you'd only pay taxes on 400,000 if you're married and filing jointly. But if you're a firefighter in DeKalb County and you're making $70,000, and maybe you're married to a retail clerk who's making $30,000, well, your income tax would be completely eliminated under the plan introduced by Senate Bill 476.

221. 1:45:38

     Senate Bill 476, by coming from the other side of the Subway sandwich and exempting the first $50,000 for an individual, the first $100,000 for a couple, well, that allows us in year one to eliminate the state income tax on two-thirds of Georgians, 64%. It allows us to give a substantial increase, a substantial, uh, increase in savings to those families making more than $100,000, about $5,000. It's real money in real people's pockets, not token money that we've told them will help them later.

222. 1:46:12

     Senate Bill 476 is tailored to address the affordability crisis for the middle class, and it's why I'm really proud to support it. $5,000 may not sound like a ton to a millionaire. But let's talk about what it means to that average Georgia family I described to you earlier, the one making $47,000 or the family of four that makes on average $71,000.

223. 1:46:40

     $5,000, well, that's the cost of childcare for three months. It's the cost of rent for three to six months. It's the cost of groceries for six months. It's the cost of their power bill and their gas in their car combined for an entire year. And if you look at Google, you'll also find out that $5,000 is two times the average homestead property tax that's paid in this state.

224. 1:47:11

     And I know that's disparate. It varies across the area. But it's two times that amount.

225. 1:47:18

     Senate Bill 476 is real relief for middle-class families, and it's real relief for everyday Georgians. When we return that money to taxpayers, there needs to be some offset. So the study committee looked really hard at where should we offset those revenue costs. And one thing we found out is that Georgia gives out roughly $30 billion in special interest corporate credits each year. We publish those in something called a Tax Expenditure Report.

226. 1:47:51

     I brought a copy of it here for you today. The 2027 report was just published. When you heard me talk before, you heard me reference the 2026 report. We actually had to expand it by five pages. It's now 210 pages that goes through credit line by line, credit by credit, exemption by s- exemption allowed to interests of the state simply because many times they can afford a lobbyist. The Senate's proposal pays for that $3 billion each fiscal year by reducing some of these credits.

227. 1:48:26

     If we wanted to do away with the income tax completely, there's a very easy way to do it. The state income tax brings in $16.2 billion. These credits total over 30. You wanna do away with the state income tax? All you have to do is tear these in half. But the Senate's proposal didn't even go that aggressively at tax credits. It simply said all we need to do is reduce these by 10%. And by reducing these by 10%, we can eliminate the income tax on fa- on individuals making less than 50,000 and eliminate the income tax on families making less than 100,000.

228. 1:49:03

     That's how we balance, and it works. There's 29 credits that we cut or exemptions that we cut in this bill, and I wanna read a couple of them to you so that you understand what we're talking about. You heard the senator from the 26th, and I believe the senator from the 40- 55th address the low-income housing credit. We didn't eliminate that credit. You see, in Georgia, we had one of the, we had the most generous in the sta- in the nation. We allowed you to take a double credit over the federal credit that was already allowed.

229. 1:49:35

     Senate Bill 476 just combs that back to half of the federal credit, which is in line with what many other states were already doing. We also eliminate the guards' tax credit, something that this body and the House across the way defunded several years ago already, but there's still auxiliary revenue that's left that we can claim then. We eliminated many of the insurance credits that in- uh, in- many of the credits rather, that insurance companies are able to receive. We said, "Hey, if you're getting a deduction because you're having to pay another tax, why should you be able to offset that on your state revenue?" That totals about $500 million that we're able to pack back in and reduce state in- the income tax for everyday Georgians.

230. 1:50:18

     There was a savings that banks receive for a tax that they pay on depository institutions fees. We combed that back. I'd say it's about $55 million, and instead used that savings to apply it to middle-class Georgia families. There were many credits that we started during COVID to allow for the creation of PPE, personal protective equipment, and ventilators. We added a $1,250 credit on top of the jobs tax credit, which was already very generous. We combed back that $1,250 extra credit and applied those savings instead to middle-class Georgia families.

231. 1:50:51

     There was a credit for the making of cigarettes for export. Yes, there was a credit for that. We pulled that credit back. We instead took the savings from that credit and applied it to reducing the income tax for families making less than $100,000. There was a credit for crab bait, if you bought crab bait 'cause you were crabbing. That's not a bad thing, right? We want people to crab bait fish. But should they not have to pay sales tax on that crab bait?

232. 1:51:22

     Does that help a family in Cobb County, Fulton County, DeKalb County pay for gas, groceries, or childcare tonight? It doesn't. And then we start getting down to some of the larger ones, and these are tax credits actually, and sales tax exemptions, that I believe the minority party has already signed legislation agreeing should end. Those relate to data centers. Several years ago, the data center tax credit totaled about $37 million, and it's technically a sales tax exemption.

233. 1:51:55

     The way it works is if you go to buy a laptop for your child to go to Georgia State or Georgia Southern this afternoon, you have to pay sales tax on that computer. But if somebody were to go tonight and buy $15 million worth of computers because they're building a data center, well, they pay no sales tax at all. That exemption by itself, that used to total 37 million, well, I told you and senator from the 52nd told you it's about 700 million now.

234. 1:52:26

     Turns out we lied to you. We were wrong. The total of those credits that are found at 48, OCGA 48-3, or- 8-368 and 68.1 now total over $1.5 billion.

235. 1:52:46

     So ask yourself, why should that firefighter, that teacher, that nurse have to pay sales tax on the laptop they're buying for their child to go to school, but someone who's got a market cap of billions not have to pay sales tax to place a data center in your community?

236. 1:53:13

     We went after a few other credits as well. As you know, in Georgia a few years ago, we passed a sales tax exemption if you were buying yacht parts in Georgia that you shouldn't have to pay sales tax. It was to start an industry to get things going, and that industry has now got up and gotten going. It doesn't make sense now for us to leave that exemption, especially at the expense of families who are having a hard time trying to pay for those gas, groceries, and, and childcare I mentioned earlier. We strike that for elimination. We also strike for elimination the sales tax exemption that energy providers are able to claim when they're buying natural gas in the production of their electricity.

237. 1:53:55

     That totals another about roughly $58 million. If you were to go down the entire list of the 29 credits and sales tax exemptions that you see in Senate Bill 476, you'd find out that they total right at $2.8 billion in savings. The cost of exempting the state income tax or eliminating the state income tax on individuals making $50,000 or less and families making $100,000 and less while still providing a $5,000 tax savings to those making over $100,000, well, the cost of that is right at $2.9 billion.

238. 1:54:35

     The bill balances, but it balances with a caveat. I told you that we do accept the governor's 20 basis point reduction from 5.19% down to 4.99%. The cost of that's roughly $1.3 billion, $1.2 billion. We did not factor his cost into our bill because we know when the governor introduces a bill like that, he bakes that cost into his revenue estimate. But you pull his cost off, that 1.3, and all we did is put people over corporations and made the bill balance.

239. 1:55:15

     The savings here for families is real. As I told you, it pays for three months of childcare. It pays for three to six months of rent. It pays twice their average property tax bill, and it does it by paying for itself.

240. 1:55:31

     What we did not do in this bill is something that I've heard many of you take the well lately and say that we did, that we were gonna raise the tax on groceries. We didn't. That we were gonna raise a sales tax. We didn't. That we were gonna create a property tax. Senate Bill 476 doesn't do that. It takes corporate welfare credits, combs them back by just 10%, and applies that savings to Georgia families who are really making up the middle class.

241. 1:56:05

     There's some other critiques we've heard as well. The Wall Street Journal said that this bill's bad because it helps the middle class too much. Well, throw me in that briar patch. We've heard another critique from members of this chamber who say it benefits the rich. Well, my question to you then is tell me where you're drawing the line for that rich. We're drawing the line for the families we're helping at 120... from $50,000 to $125,000. Those are the folks who feel the max benefit in this.

242. 1:56:38

     Those are the folks who see their state income tax liability eliminated.

243. 1:56:44

     In a time where we feel that the people are begging for leadership on affordability, Senate Bill 476 addresses this head on, and it presents the members of this body quite the dichotomy. Are we going to vote to allow corporate welfare and corporate subsidies to continue at the expense of families who are trying to pay for gas, groceries, and childcare?

244. 1:57:17

     Or are we gonna comb back those credits by just 10% and eliminate that tax burden on those hardworking families while providing incredible direct state income tax savings to the other third who don't see their income tax eliminated?

245. 1:57:39

     The choice is real, and it's stark. And Senate Bill 476 provides direct and actual relief for Georgia families. You're gonna get an opportunity in a moment to decide which side of this line you wish to be on. And for me, I've already decided. My vote's gonna be cast with the middle class. For those who are trying to pay for gas, groceries, and childcare, for those who wake up every morning and literally put Georgia to work, I wanna help them.

246. 1:58:15

     And if that means I have to comb back a tax credit on a company worth billions, that's where I want to be.

247. 1:58:25

     And I hope you'll follow me there too. In the end, I know there'll be much comment on this bill, and Mr. President, I'll be happy to take whatever questions there may be. But I hope you realize the stark choice that's before you. Do people matter over companies? Are groceries more important than shareholder dividends?

248. 1:58:52

     Is making sure Georgia's affordable for every family more important than making sure we land the next billion-dollar deal? And I purport to you that it is. Thank you for allowing me to chair the special committee to eliminate Georgia's income tax. Thank you for allowing me to serve in this body with you now for, for 10 years. But this vote will be one of the most important that we ever take, and it will decide which direction this chamber takes for the 10 years that follow.

249. 1:59:25

     Thank you so much, Mr. President, and I'm happy to yield for questions.

250. 1:59:29

     You have no questions, Senator.

251. 1:59:33

     Thank you so much for your time. I urge your favorable consideration of Senate Bill 476.

252. 1:59:41

     The senator has yielded.

253. 1:59:53

     Senator from the 41st. Got several, got several people on, on your team looking to, uh, to speak here. What, what purpose do you rise?

254. 2:00:01

     A point of order.

255. 2:00:02

     Point of order.

256. 2:00:03

     I proceeded to rule, uh, three dash one point four that requires a fiscal note for any bill that the Senate considers, uh, pertaining to, that could have a grave impact or significant impact on our budget. A fiscal note was required. I do not see a fiscal note included in any of these bills, and so I'm asking for a ruling from the chair as to whether or not we can actually debate this bill.

257. 2:00:24

     Repeat that, uh, code section again, please, ma'am.

258. 2:00:27

     It's three dash one point four regarding fiscal notes.

259. 2:00:30

     All right. Thank

260. 2:00:54

     you

261. 2:01:19

     Senator, your, um, point of order is duly noted, but I think you heard a long explanation from the appropriations chair of this body for over six years now, who had a study committee over the summer where we had a bipartisan, uh, study group, and they looked at this pretty carefully, and he was, uh, pretty clear about where he's getting his numbers from. So I think we'll continue the debate, though. Thank you, though.

262. 2:01:50

     Recognize the senator from the ninth.

263. 2:02:15

     Thank you, Mr. President. Colleagues, I rise today in opposition of this bill, which we should rename Cut Taxes for the Wealthy and Rise Costs for Everyone Else Act, 'cause that's what this bill is. And Georgia families deserve the truth to be spoken as plainly as possible about this bill, that this is a middle class tax hike.

264. 2:02:47

     This... I'm gonna say this without any spin. There's no slogans, and you're gonna hear some that are trying to sell this tax scam bill on you.

265. 2:02:58

     That this is a middle class tax hike.

266. 2:03:04

     And for more than two decades, the majority Senate Republicans are finally admitting what Georgians have been living with every single day, an affordability crisis that has developed on their watch. But instead of delivering a real solution and real relief, this scam bill creates a massive hole in our state budget.

267. 2:03:32

     It's gonna be a hole so deep that it will swallow the services that families, everyday families rely on, and they're gonna raise costs in a way that families are going to continue to struggle. And it's gonna take a bit of time for it to play out, but this is what will be the consequences of this income tax bill if it passes. And the bill tells us exactly how that hole is going to be created. If you look at lines 38 through 40, it locks in a 4.99% income tax rate with no guardrails.

268. 2:04:10

     So what does that mean? It permanently removes the revenue-based triggers that protect Georgia during down- downturns, and s- we do have downturns. It forces, uh, the tax cut even if the economy weakens or our revenues fall in the state. It guarantees a budget shortfall that the state cannot pause or reverse.

269. 2:04:36

     It's going to eliminate the financial safeguards that once ensured tax cuts only happen when Georgia can afford to have them.

270. 2:04:47

     And let's be clear. If this plan could have, could withstand public scrutiny, it would not have been rushed through committee without real debate, without a fiscal note, or any bipartisan input.

271. 2:05:08

     Not once has a, someone on my side of the aisle, would they consulted truly about this bill. And we could have had time to craft a bill if we had some bipartisan debate and some bipar- bipartisan, um, discussion to really craft a bill that actually responds to affordability. And when you move this fast, what y'all should be asking yourself, why is it m- moving so fast?

272. 2:05:41

     Why was this bill rushed through?

273. 2:05:46

     What don't you want the public to see?

274. 2:05:51

     We're told not to worry that, you know, the eliminating the tax credit will magically pay for a 9 billion hole, $9 billion hole that will be the result of this income tax bill. And imagine, I'm gonna give you, just i-i- imagine just going to the, what you've been told now. Imagine you're going to the store and a salesman tells you, "You don't need to see the price of those goods, but trust me, it's gonna save you money." And then you get to the register and find out you can't afford that item.

275. 2:06:28

     And understand another critical point about this bill, that when you remove money, because over half of our state income tax revenue collected from taxpayers pays for many of our state services that we need. You know, there was some talk about eliminating some credits that might be less consq- consequential, b- but some of them, some of those credits are actually very important and we need them.

276. 2:06:59

     So when you remove money collect- collected from taxes that pay for essential services that Georgia families need, that revenue disappears. But the costs accumulated don't vanish. The cost is still there. Things we have to pay for and buy, buy are still there.

277. 2:07:22

     It just shifts. It doesn't vanish. It just shifts. And it's always the middle class and working families and seniors on fixed incomes who are asked to carry the burden through higher costs, reduced services, or even both.

278. 2:07:45

     But let's talk about what this bill does do. This bill wipes out nearly every tax credit that keeps Georgians' economy running. Affordable housing credits, gutted. Rural hospital credits, gutted. Childcare credits, gone. Veterans and law, law enforcement credits, gone. Port activity credits, gone. Research and innovation credits, gone.

279. 2:08:17

     And support for rural hospitals at a time where we're in a healthcare crisis, support for rural hos- hospitals and doctors, gone.

280. 2:08:28

     For 23 years, we've watched policies that prioritize the wealthy while working, hardworking Georgians continue to fall behind. And now after decades of ignoring an affordability crisis, we're told that this bill is the solution. I am here to tell you it is most definitely not. And this is the truth in one sentence, or a few sentences. This bill cuts taxes for the wealthy, blows a hole in our budget, forces higher sales taxes, kills jobs, worsens the housing crisis that we have now, and rises the cost of living for middle class families, seniors, and small businesses.

281. 2:09:16

     This is what this bill does if it passes today.

282. 2:09:22

     And Republicans are gonna keep claiming that the sale tax, these sale taxes won't increase because of this bill, and that sounds comforting. It's a lie.

283. 2:09:36

     But when you remove almost nine billion from a budget and you're only talking about recovering half of it, the math doesn't care about politics. The math is not adding up. Where are we going to fill the gap? Still can't get a clear answer on where we're filling the, the gap to pay for essential services that we need here in Georgia. And in every state that has tried to pass this income tax or, or eliminate the income tax,

284. 2:10:16

     they have had higher sales taxes on groceries. They've tried to fill a gap through higher sales tax on groceries. So other states have tried to eliminate that, so they had to raise taxes somewhere else. It was higher sales tax on groceries at a time where groceries are extremely expe- expensive. We're feeling the pinch. It was a higher taxes on school supplies, so now we're gonna burden our families, you know, just trying to send their kids to school. Higher taxes on restriction, prescription drugs at a time when our elderly already cannot afford the rising cost of prescription drugs.

285. 2:10:53

     And rising cost and, and, and rising the taxes on just everyday essentials. That's how Republicans are proposing we're gonna fill the gap.

286. 2:11:03

     So let's be honest with the people that we serve here today. This bill is not about affordability, it's about austerity. It's not about a relief, it's a risk. It didn't even have a fiscal note. Nine billion dollars and no fiscal note. That would dramatically change the economy in the state of Georgia. We passed the bill. That bill rammed through in 24 hours, a bill that will fundamentally change the economy in the state of Georgia and I would rather... I would say it will devastate our economy.

287. 2:11:37

     It's not a plan for working families. It's a plan working families will pay for. Republicans can't continue to claim that they're fighting for working families while advancing policies that working families pay for. I'm asking you all to vote no on this bill.

288. 2:12:00

     It would be nice if we could pull it from the floor right now and actually come to the table and have a real discussion and put forth a real bipartisan pa- plan that actually responds to Georgians and will save them money. But this bill isn't it. And with that, Mr. President, I yield the floor.

289. 2:12:24

     Senator has yielded. Bring it down to senator from the second.

290. 2:12:42

     Thank you, Mr. President.

291. 2:12:46

     To my good friend, the senator from the 19th, I wish you would've came not with that, uh, binder clip of the tax credits, but it would've came with a binder clip with that fiscal note. That would've helped me really understand the math on what we're doing. I'm a public school graduate And I wanna make sure that I can do the math right, 'cause what we're talking about is about billions with a B. So I wanna make sure that somebody a little smarter than me can give me a report to tell me the exact intended consequence or unintended consequence, or the lack thereof, of what this will do for this state.

292. 2:13:31

     Now, I've got serious concerns about Senate Bill 476, a- and if I could listen to my grandmother this morning, she would tell me I was born at night, not last night.

293. 2:13:48

     So I wanna be clear about this. I believe everybody in this chamber wants Georgians to keep more of their hard-earned money, but that is not the debate. That's not the debate about Georgians keeping their hard-earned money. Instead of raising the wages so people have more money, we said we'll just cut taxes so that you can hopefully get some more money. But see, I, I did some quick math and I realized that the largest gains would be to those higher earners because they get to exempt more.

294. 2:14:23

     But if you are an average Georgia, Georgia citizen, robbing Peter to pay Paul and hope John don't ask for his money back, how that's gonna work for you? So then I thought about, well, maybe

295. 2:14:39

     businesses, maybe they'll see the impact. Then I thought about small businesses and how this would affect them, and then I thought about the ramifications of what could or could not happen, and then I, I just went back to last week. Didn't have to go far, just last week. Last biennium we came with some property tax measures that we negotiated that was a two-thirds vote, and I've been in this chamber, this is my sixth session, and we came back and we made a revision to that two-thirds vote, and we did it by general law.

296. 2:15:12

     So then I said, "Well, if we're going to make these reductions, somebody gonna have to come up with a little more money." Then I thought, "Well, we gotta come up with some more money." I could argue where the money would come from if I had the fiscal note, 'cause then I could see exactly what the impact would or would not be if I had it. But since I don't have it, I'll just have to speculate, because if you make the cut here, there's only two ways to raise revenue. You either raise taxes or you find new revenue.

297. 2:15:44

     You raise revenue. Well, compared to those other states that were referenced, their sales tax is a little bit higher. Well, then I thought about my good friend that owns a restaurant, and I was sitting down with him talking at his restaurant, and I came to understand that he had to pay sales tax for the next year on money he hadn't earned yet to the state. He had to pre-pay sales tax to the state in the next fiscal year. So that money is sitting in the Department of Revenue and that's how we can make these revenue projections.

298. 2:16:17

     So then I thought, "Well, if we have to raise the sales tax to pay for it, how are those small businesses gonna get the money because we project for them what the future earnings will be? And they come up with that money out of their own pockets before the fiscal year ever shows up and before th- they ever collect the sales tax in their business." So now I wonder, what about those folks? 'Cause sales tax affects everybody. So now the question becomes, does this bill cut taxes responsibly or whether it will create a structural hole in Georgia's budget that future legislatures will be forced to fill?

299. 2:16:56

     Now, colleagues, I am not running for a statewide office. I intend to come back to the Second if the folks in the Second hope that I come back. But there are many in this room who are gonna be running on a statewide ticket and on both sides of the aisle, they won't have to answer this question of what do we do next, 'cause they won't be here in the next. You and I, colleagues, will be the next. So now, many of them will be gone, but some of us will still be here to pick up the pieces of what's left of this bill.

300. 2:17:28

     And you can't blame somebody that's no longer in the chamber because folks are gonna wanna know, "Well, what did you do then?" You can't say, "Well, this is what they did back then," 'cause they're gonna say, "Well, what are you gonna do right now?" Right now, personal income tax brings in about 16 billion a year. That's nearly, almost half of our general fund. So this absolutely makes a change that's very dramatic in the system. Now I wanna know, why can we not do something about paying folks a livable wage?

301. 2:18:00

     Instead of worrying about how we're gonna cut taxes, why can't we make sure that folks actually make a wage that's decent and honorable for the work that they do? So we're saying that taxes are the problem, but I would assure you taxes wouldn't be the problem if folks had a little more money. But when you don't have enough, you're already trying to figure out how to make it enough, how to make it work. And so if we're gonna lower and cut the income tax rate, it sounds good, and for the families who are already at the bottom of the tier, they may not see the largest gains.

302. 2:18:34

     But I did the math, they may save about $1,200, be about $100 a month, and at the same time, you cut the low-income housing tax credit. You make it the affordable housing tax credit, but ain't nothing affordable about it. Because if you give me an extra $100 and you cut the credit and you decrease production of the amount of units available in this state, then where are they gonna take that $100 when people, when you wanna go rent an apartment, want you to have three times the salary? Well, where are they gonna get three times the salary? And we hope and believe that corporations do the right thing if you cut those taxes for them, too, right?

303. 2:19:08

     We've heard that before. We've heard trickle-down economics, and I'ma tell you, my family's been waiting on trickle-down economics and we ain't seen nothing trickle down yet. So what does it also mean? Independent estimates said this could reduce the state revenue from anywhere from three billion to nine billion dollars every single year, even after accounting for the sales tax changes in this bill. Let me repeat that, nine billion dollars. We'll cut the affordable housing tax credit, give folks a little bit, and when they get to the grocery store, they'll realize the little bit they got still ain't enough.

304. 2:19:43

     Housing production, when we talk about that affordable housing tax credit in the state, we're not like other states because we have a gratuitous clause. The gratuitous clause says that you can't put money in the budget for a direct entity in the budget, so guess what? We can't be like Florida and provide loans on top of their nine percents. The reason the State of Georgia matches dollar for dollar to the nine percent affordable housing tax credit is because we get to punch above our weight and compete with states like Texas and Florida. And I know some will come to this well and argue, "But we're making those developers so rich." Well, if that was the case, we'd have affordable housing all up and down the street.

305. 2:20:22

     Problem is, you don't make that much money in affordable housing. And there are very few that do it, because if it was so profitable, everybody would be doing it. But that has no comparison to market rate, so we'll cut the affordable housing tax credit. I have learned, colleagues, that folks are good at doing one thing and saying another. We'll give you a dollar and take 20 right back and smile and say, "Didn't we help you today?" But last year, I thought about some other votes that we took inside of this body.

306. 2:20:57

     If we wanted to be serious about affordability and helping folks to get ahead, we absolutely wouldn't just stick it to them. We would work to raise the state minimum wage. We don't, we're $5.15. Federal standard is $7.25 an hour. And then some will say, "But nobody pays that." But people base their computations of how much to pay based off what the lowest available minimum wage is, if we wanted to do something about it. But nine billion dollars in our budget at risk, and you want me to believe that this is gonna be the best solution to come up with that.

307. 2:21:34

     But when it falls short, we're gonna raise them sales taxes. So we're talking about how do we offset this? Most of these credits will be eliminated in 2032 or something. You know what? I'll be honest with you. I agree, we absolutely should eliminate them. But I tell you what, that affordable housing tax credit is not something we should eliminate because folks are already telling us they cannot afford rent right now. Maybe in some of our rural parts, folks may be able to afford rent, but I'm gonna tell you, in Savannah, the rent is sky high. Childcare, sky high.

308. 2:22:04

     How do we figure that folks wanted us to cut the income tax first when folks are telling us, "Look, we'd go back into the workforce if we could just afford childcare. We would absolutely do all of these things if we had some housing that was attainable, some housing that was affordable." You got folks that say, "We can't even afford to buy a house." Why? Because when the banks go to lend the money, they wanna know how much salary do you have. They don't care about if you pay taxes, if you don't pay tax. They wanna know what is your gross annual income.

309. 2:22:36

     We ought to be figuring out how to give folks a larger gross with increasing the wages in this state, not stagnating and saying we're gonna benefit the most top-tier folks. So over the next several years, we'll absorb these cuts if you vote for it, and if you'll still be in the chamber with me, and Lord willing and the creek don't rise, I make it back and you make it back and we're still here, maybe we'll get together and hold hands and say, "What happened here on this day when you voted this out?" So what do we cut? Do we cut education? Do we cut healthcare?

310. 2:23:07

     Do we slow down transportation projects? Do we shift more costs on local government? 'Cause we know we can give school systems unfunded mandates. But I just wanna be honest, when income taxes go down this much, something else always go up. So if we cut affordable housing, starting in 2027, at a time where rents are rising and working families are already stretched thin, robbing Peter to pay Paul, and now we're gonna take one of the only tools we have available to increase housing supply, we're gonna cut that.

311. 2:23:39

     This affects teachers, seniors, first responders, and families that wanna stay in their communities. Because if you know some folks who are senior citizens, they'll tell you they live on what? A fixed income, meaning the money is set, it's fixed. I only got what I got, and I gotta work with what I got, and that's it. There's no magical bailout for folks that are senior citizens. So this bill doesn't just cut taxes. It impacts folks for generations to come. It restructures the entire revenue system, and it would lock in permanent losses. It removes future flexibility, and it shifts the risk onto the very services that our constituents rely on.

312. 2:24:16

     Tax relief has to be balanced, it has to be sustainable, but it should not be a mortgage payment on Georgia's future where the note may come due and we bankrupt the state. For those reasons, Mr. President, I cannot vote for SB 476 in its current form because I'm not willing to vote for bankruptcy. Because maybe some folks in this room got Monopoly money, but the folks I know are rubbing a few nickels together trying to make ends meet. And with that, Mr. President, my folks are robbing people, Peter to pay Paul, and hope John don't ask for his money back.

313. 2:24:46

     But it seems that in this bill, we don't know who to ask for the money back 'cause we're gonna be paying everybody. And with that, I yield the will. Senator has yielded.

314. 2:25:00

     It's clear he's, he made it clear, though, he didn't wanna vote for this tax cut.

315. 2:25:09

     So we've got a number of speakers here, uh, lined up, which is fine. But I do, I do know the pro tem is, uh, got lunch that is be coming here in a little bit. We can continue on debate if everybody would rather do that. And then, uh-

316. 2:25:26

     When it does get here, we'll break, and if we have time to vote on this bill, we will. And if we, we don't, we'll just break for a little bit and come back. Does that sound all right to y'all? All right. Well, good, because that's what we're gonna do anyway. So,

317. 2:25:43

     I recognize the senator from the, uh, 42nd.

318. 2:25:59

     Thank you, Mr. President. I don't recognize the bill that my friend from the 2nd just spoke on, but I, I rise today in support of Senate Bill 476. Today, we get a chance to show why we ran for office. Today, we'll get to show who we came to this Gold Dome to fight for. I think I can say safely that nobody in this room has had more contested elections in the last 13 years than me. Sometimes when you aren't really challenged, you may forget who you answer to and who really brought you to this party.

319. 2:26:35

     When I look back at the mailers that I've run over the years and all the social media posts I've had over this past decade, I look and I see that I promise election after election to fight for Georgia families first. And these Georgia families aren't always able to make the trip up to the Capitol. They can't always hire lobbyists. They aren't always at your local political party breakfast. And instead of spending their evenings debating whether they're gonna summer in the highlands or in Sea Island, they worry about whether or not they can af- find enough camps for their kids to go to in the summer so they can keep working their jobs.

320. 2:27:18

     Instead of spending their evenings in dark fancy steakhouses in Buckhead, they sit down when their kids are asleep at night and start crunching numbers and ask themselves, "Does it still make sense for me to even keep working with the rising cost of childcare?" So while these working families aren't always out here in the halls, if you take the time to listen, their voices are shouting at us from every corner of this state. And today we have a chance to do what we all promised to do when we begged for their votes.

321. 2:27:52

     Today, we can put working families first. And this isn't about us versus them. I believe that being the number one state in the country for business also means being the number one state in the country for families. This bill does not toss out the great work over the past two decades of getting Georgia to the place where people and businesses around the country flock here. This bill simply says, if we're going to use our tax policies to incentivize economic growth, we'll make certain that every incentive we provide puts Georgia families first.

322. 2:28:30

     Our working families need help now, and today you can join me in showing our working families that we hear you. I've heard it said that we're picking winners and losers today. I think that's actually right. There's a clear loser in this bill, and if you listen to some of these speeches, you realize quickly who the real loser is, because the loser in this bill is the state senator. It's the politician.

323. 2:29:02

     If you vote for this bill, what you're saying is that the people that sent you here know better how to spend their money than you do. Today, you have a chance to put the politician second and the person that voted for the politician first. And I hope you'll join me today in supporting Senate Bill 476 and sending a strong message from this state Senate about who you came here to fight for. Thank you, Mr. President.

324. 2:29:35

     Thank you, Senator. Recognize the senator from the 38th.

325. 2:29:55

     Senator from the 38th. All right, we'll go to the next one. Senator from the 52nd. Thank you, Mr. President. I want to address this from a little bit different perspective and talk about some of these, uh, tax credits.

326. 2:30:26

     And let me tell you, I'm not against, uh, big business at all. We've certainly brought them into my district. SK Batteries is the third largest investment in Georgia. QCells Solar, the largest, uh, uh, square footage of solar cell manufacturer in the Western Hemisphere. Data centers, which we want, and others. But they also pay their way up there. They pay their full way, and they still come.

327. 2:30:56

     We take great care of them when they come. And, um, the result of that is things such as, uh, Cartersville now has said they're okay with us raising their homestead exemption from twenty-eight hundred to a hundred thousand dollars. We're doing it the right way. We also want to make sure we don't take away credits that are gonna hurt people, and that's why we started in the Senate in, uh, twenty twenty-two, uh, starting to study these.

328. 2:31:27

     We can get studies from-

329. 2:31:29

     push studies from different groups that tell us how it's gonna be great and gonna create a billion jobs, and those jobs are gonna create jobs. And we try to send it out independently. We don't pick the people that do it. We stay out of it. We let the, uh, Department of Audits do that. And so these things in here have been studied. The, um, data center study was done this year. Uh, had ordered it in April, and I think a lot of people have seen that and used it.

330. 2:32:00

     The, um, high-tech computer equipment had previously been done. Manufacturer tax credit, bank tax credit, those are all online. You can look at them. Insurance premiums, computer equipment, I might have mentioned. You know, the, the data center credit and the high-tech computer equipment together make sure you understand how much they take away from the revenue of the State of Georgia.

331. 2:32:30

     Every one of us pays inc- state income taxes. All our income taxes have to be paid until February 3rd of this year just to pay for those. Over a month, over a twelfth of it just for that credit.

332. 2:32:46

     The low-income housing credit's been talked about. We did a study on that. We had matched 100 to 100%. Some states don't match it at all. Some match it 100 to 50%. The study is right there independently that says we weren't building any more housing units by doing that. They were maximizing the use of these federal credits either way. The federal credits are a finite amount of money. They're using them either way. And, um, our going from 50 to 100% didn't create any more housing.

333. 2:33:18

     Housing's an issue, but this isn't the way to do it anymore. So, um, uh, it was just surprising to hear from somebody that this was a tax hike. There's no new taxes in this.

334. 2:33:37

     People say, "Well, maybe you will increase sales tax someday. These other states increase sales taxes." Well, I don't know if those states did or not. They probably did, but we're not those states. We're Georgia. And the way we're doing it is we're taking away money that's been taken away from this middle class and given out as credits to people that were going to build things anyway according to the studies. We're get- we're putting that money back in the middle class pockets.

335. 2:34:09

     $5,000 a family is going back in their pockets. You know, there's nothing in... And I've, I've ordered a fiscal study. I've had it ordered. It's complicated. I'm sure we'll have it all before a final vote. This is gonna go over to the House. It's gonna come back. But there's nothing we're even putting in there for the fact that what does $5,000 in everybody's pocket do to the economy of Georgia? You all know it's gonna stimulate the economy of Georgia when that happens. We would rather have it in their pockets than others.

336. 2:34:39

     I think this is a responsible measure. We started some years ago. We raised the standard deduction from 3,000 to 6,000. We doubled it. We raised it from 6,000 to 24,000. We quadrupled it. Now going from 24 to 100,000, we're quadrupling it again. We're trying to give the money to the people who need it the most in this state, and that's the working poor and the middle class trying to lower their tax burden and put money in their pockets.

337. 2:35:14

     I saw something in a report about Art Laffer, how that was a failure, um, in the report that was put on our desk. You know, I'm an old guy. I was around in the '80s when Reagan did his cuts. It wasn't a failure. The revenue coming into the federal government doubled in that decade. The problem is Congress on both sides of the aisle raised spending way more than that.

338. 2:35:46

     That's the only problem was that spending was out of control, um, and not that the revenue was a problem. The re- the revenue doubled from 1880, from 1980 to 1990. I wasn't around in 1880. Sorry about that. Um, anyway, I think, uh, this is very responsible. This is done by a long game. The long game was starting these studies back in 2022, systematically going through them, and the long game was starting this summer and studying this issue.

339. 2:36:21

     I feel like this is a very responsible plan. I think it is badly needed for the people of Georgia fighting higher energy costs, higher food costs, and I think it's gonna be a great thing for Georgia. I'll certainly support it. Um, I know it's gonna be a great thing, and I hope the House will take this up when we send it to them. Thank you, Mr. President, and I yield to Will.

340. 2:36:48

     Thank you, Senator. I recognize Senator from the 56th.

341. 2:37:04

     Thank you, Mr. President. I rise in support of Senate Bill 476. A little over 10 years ago, I created a study committee, thanks to this Senate, to begin looking at our tax credits and incentives to see if each and every one had a return on investment or ROI as we call it. And what we learned during that study committee is some did and most did not We furthered that process by passing my Senate Bill 6 back many years ago that put in the code that we'd measure those tax credits on a rotating basis year over year.

342. 2:37:42

     And why would we do that? Because we wanna be fiscally responsible and conservative. And we have found many of those are losing money, which means we're putting in a state tax dollar and not nearly getting the money back for that. Well, what does that really mean? What it means is to every other individual and family and business, we're telling them, "You should pay more tax money to prop up somebody else's special interest." That is the definition of picking winners and losers.

343. 2:38:22

     What we're doing today, thanks to the president's body and our lieutenant governor, the senator from the 19th, is bringing that back to the individuals and families to give the money back to their pocket. Now, I realize for some of you, perhaps $5,000 a year back in your pocket if your family makes $100,000 isn't much, but to the people in my district and to me, it means an awful lot.

344. 2:38:52

     $5,000 a year when we are just getting through the worst inflation in 45 years, thanks to the prior administration in Washington, D.C. $5,000 a year is a huge answer to the affordability crisis that families are facing. This is a true kitchen table issue where that's the difference of paying my property taxes, being able to afford groceries, being able to take a family vacation, support your kids in sports, being on a fixed income as a senior citizen.

345. 2:39:33

     If you can't connect the dots on this one, it is time to go back to school and redo math class. Now, I heard from some of my friends on the other side of the aisle come up and talk about this legislation. This is a pro tip from a guy that's been around for a while. It's important you actually read the bill and know what it's about prior to coming up here and talking about everything that was emphatically untrue.

346. 2:40:05

     As I've said before, and I'll say again, you are entitled to your opinion, but you are not entitled to your own facts. We've had my friends in the left come up here and talk about all these cuts that are in the bill that actually aren't even so. In fact, they specifically were pointed out by the appropriations chairman. Why would you come up and literally tell a falsehood to the Senate and all the people listening?

347. 2:40:35

     Understand the facts. Read the legislation. This is as middle class tax cut as it possibly could get. So from a political perspective, I hope some people vote against this bill because they'll be the ones in the ballot box that will be reminded of that. I myself am proud to support this bill, proud to go back to my district and the people I represent and say during the toughest affordability crisis we have faced after record high inflation from the prior administration, the people of Georgia acted.

348. 2:41:11

     We put money back in your pocket, real and meaningful dollars, and we did it in a responsible way by cutting back tax credits that didn't provide a return on investment, and we did it in a fiscally responsible and smart way that supports the individuals and families first. I hope you'll join me today in this great piece of legislation. Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the will. Senator's yielded. Okay, we're going to, uh, take a, uh, a quick little lunch break here and, uh, I appreciate, uh, we've got everybody still sitting in the queue so when we come back we'll, we'll pick right up, uh, wherever you are in, in the, uh, in the lineup here.

349. 2:41:53

     But, uh, we're gonna take about a 30-minute lunch break. I think they have, uh, lunch. The Pro Tem has provided lunch for everyone here. Uh, I do wanna introduce a, a special guest we have today is, uh, uh, Christopher, uh, Patterson here. He is, uh, with the, uh, administration. He is the U- with the US Department of Housing and Ur- Urban Development. He's here today to meet with, uh, our, our agencies of, uh, to talk about defects, uh, foster care system and housing and a lot of other things. So let's give him a warm welcome here for being a guest with us here today.

350. 2:42:31

     We'll be, uh, let's, uh, say we'll be back at, uh, 1:00.

351. 3:30:50

     The Senate will come back to order.

352. 3:32:41

     Senator from the 39th.

353. 3:32:55

     Senator from the... Well, senator from the 16th, calling you right now.

354. 3:33:06

     Senator from the 41st, would you like to take a shot at it?

355. 3:33:13

     I've gone through three different senators that aren't in the room yet.

356. 3:33:19

     You, would you like? We-

357. 3:33:25

     Yeah. Fuck yeah.

358. 3:33:35

     I'm not gonna. I know the rules.

359. 3:33:35

     Wanna call it quits?

360. 3:33:37

     No, because there's a minority report, and then he gets to close, and by then y'all will be done. Well, I know the rules. Minority report? I am not Senator Halpern. She is. Okay. You just talk, you just talk a little bit. I'm gonna talk for a little bit if that's okay. Yeah, yeah. Are you ready? Yeah, we're ready. Go. Thank you, Mr. President, and thank you, uh, ladies and gentlemen, for coming back for, um, a nice break. I, I wanna begin by, um, repeating back some words from the senator from the nineteenth that he opened his comments with. Um, I'm gonna change them just slightly so that it's actually from him instead of me, 'cause I don't want the film to be clipped with me saying these words, right?

361. 3:34:16

     Um, so when the senator from the nineteenth talked about the data center tax credits, he started out by saying that, "You know, we used to think that they were gonna cost X amount of dollars." And then he says, "Turns out he lied to you. He was wrong. Tax credits ended up costing hundreds of million dollars more than he'd ever anticipated. Turns out he lied to you. He was wrong." Now, I'm a preacher, so I can't constantly refer to someone as lying without really knowing their intentions, but I can talk about the possibility that the senator from the nineteenth and others who intend to vote for this bill might just be wrong.

362. 3:34:57

     The numbers don't quite add up for us, and one of the reasons why I know they don't add up is because there was a special committee that studied this issue, and they issued a report. And in the report, authored and signed by the senator from the nineteenth and those who voted for that report on the committee, to be clear, it was not a bipartisan effort in terms of reporting out and actually approving it. But for those who signed that report, the report says that if we are to increase the standard deduction to 50K and 100K, that that will cost us $6 billion, with a B.

363. 3:35:39

     His own report says that the hole created in our budget will cost $6 billion. I can cite the page number if you would like. And yet, when he stood up in the well and talked about this bill, the senator outlined revenue sources that only add up to $3 billion. Friends, I would posit today that he is wrong. I would argue today that the math just doesn't quite math up. If it costs six billion but you can only provide me with $3 billion in revenue sources, there is a hole, and we have not done our constitutional duty of balancing the budget.

364. 3:36:16

     He's wrong, my friends. And then there's this other piece the senator has talked about and many of you all have come to the well and talked about how great it would be for us to put $5,000 back into the hands of Georgians if we did this cut. But let's talk about who gets that $5,000. You see, it's not the average Georgian family who makes between 60 and $70,000. They can't get the whole 100K deduction. The average family, the average family who only makes, you know, makes 60 to $70,000, how much do they get back in their pockets based on the real math?

365. 3:36:54

     They get about $1,300 a year. If you divide that across 24 pay periods to use the same logic that we heard from this well, um, well, that ends up being about $50 a paycheck. And I'll tell you, when I go down to my local grocery store with my constituents, $50 bar- barely, barely covers four days' worth of groceries for a family. He was wrong when he suggested that we are putting $5,000 back in the pockets of Georgians.

366. 3:37:25

     This, this bill does not do that. It puts $5,000 back in the hands of those who have a lot of money. Those who make more than six figures, sure, they get $5,000 back. In fact, you wanna talk about some real numbers? Those who make in the top 1%, they get $20,000 back in their pockets. That's what the numbers really tell us. When he says that this is about working Georgians and making sure that middle class Georgians are well c- are well cared for, he's wrong.

367. 3:37:56

     This does not add real money to Georgians' pockets. If we really wanted to put money back in the pockets of hardworking Georgians, we would have passed an EITC, an earned income tax credit, a long time ago that was refundable, and that would have put real dollars back in families' pockets. If we really wanted to actually help working families, we would increase our child tax credit and make it refundable so that families can get real dollars back to them that can help offset the rising costs.

368. 3:38:27

     You see, my friends, I listen to my constituents, and my constituents complain about a whole lot of things. But I'll tell you one of the things they don't complain about is actually not income tax. Because my constituents often don't make enough money to have to pay very much in income tax. Remember, Georgians, the senator from the nineteenth gave us a great tutorial just last year about how income taxes work, and if you don't make much money, your tax liability in the state of Georgia, it's very low. So when my constituents call me, my constituents who are struggling to pay for groceries or who are overwhelmed by childhood, childcare costs, when my constituents call me because they can't afford $100 to replace a tire that was blown, they're complaining about those things.

369. 3:39:14

     True affordability, the cost of groceries. They're complaining about the fact that rent has increased by 60% over the decade. We've seen a whole lot of ads and things about how great this is, and there was even someone who posited that if we were to pass this bill, we are providing a, a 5% raise to Georgians. Well, let me be clear. First of all, that's only to some Georgians, and it's typically Georgians who make over six figures. But secondly, a 5% raise in the face of 60% increase in rent is just a spit in the face.

370. 3:39:50

     And to give someone a 5% raise in the face of r- of grocery prices that are well beyond that inflation rate, it's just a few pennies. It's just to try to appease the masses while all the meanwhile making sure that we give more and more money, allowing more and more people with real money to keep that money in their pockets. This bill, my colleagues have said it before, it's a scam. It's a scam that tells you, those of you who are watching this, that, "Oh, look, you won't have to pay income taxes," while meanwhile it's actually saying to their friends who make six figures and more, "You won't have to pay income taxes." If we wanna make a real difference in this state, we wanna make sure that families are able to pay for six months' worth of groceries, we need to give them a refundable child tax credit that is real money, that puts money in their pockets, more than the little 250 that we currently give.

371. 3:40:51

     If we wanna make a real difference, it's about a progressive tax rate. Here's what my constituents tell me where I'm from, and I know I'm from a different place than a lot of you all. But in DeKalb County, my constituents tell me that what they really wish when it comes to taxes, they, they wish that we would make the people who are really rich pay their fair share. That's what they tell me. They say, "W- why do the wealthy just get by and not have to pay their fair share? Why are corporations being treated like people and paying so little? Why can't you just tax the rich?" That's what my constituents are asking for.

372. 3:41:25

     They're asking for the upside down pyramid of how taxes work, where those who make the most pay the least and those who make the less pay the most. They're asking for that to be flipped upside down, and to make sure that those who are wealthiest pay their fair share, and that those who have the least contribute only what they can. And then that when we actually do this, that we also make sure we balance our budget without destroying the very agencies that provide safety nets for those who can't even begin to pay income tax.

373. 3:41:58

     You know what this bill does nothing for? It does absolutely nothing for the people who are sleeping under bridges that we drive by every day. This bill does absolutely nothing for those folks. This bill does absolutely nothing for the family that can't even find a job that will m- meet the $50,000 ta- standard deduction. Do you know how many working moms right now today are working 40, 60, 70 hours a week and still can't reach the 50K to, uh, to realize this alleged supposed gift that we're providing?

374. 3:42:34

     Senator from the second said it already. We need to increase wages if we wanna actually help working Georgians. We need to make it so that people can make $50,000 or $100,000 so that the standard deduction means something to them, if that's the move we're trying to make. At the end of the day, here's what I know. I know that the people who live in my district rushed by the signs that are posted on all the light poles in my district that say, "Child tax credit.

375. 3:43:11

     File your taxes right now to get your check." Because the federal government provides a real tax credit for children, and people in my district rushed to file their taxes so they could get real relief. Until we are willing to do that, until we're willing to actually help families by giving them refundable tax credits that help them put food on the table, that help offset the high cost of childcare, we're doing nothing for the people of 41st. And in fact, I believe my colleagues have made a really strong and compelling argument that we're, in fact, hurting them.

376. 3:43:48

     Because right now, today, perhaps for the first fiscal year, your $3 billion will work, but the second fiscal year in your budget, we know costs at least $6 billion. And when we go to fill that in, it'll be by taxing the things that my constituents need every day. It will go to increasing a sales tax. Friends, let me end with this. I don't know how many of you like shopping at Costco, but if you wanna shop in the Chattanooga Costco, you know where it is.

377. 3:44:21

     It's in Georgia. It's across the state line. Why? Because in Tennessee, they don't have an income tax, so instead, their sales tax rate is almost twice as what it is here in Georgia. So the Chattanooga Costco is in Georgia, where the sales tax rate is almost half. I always tell my children, "You probably shouldn't copy people who aren't going in the best direction." And for us to try to mimic and copy Tennessee and Florida, places with outrageous sales tax, well, I wouldn't recommend that.

378. 3:45:04

     But instead, I encourage us to stay on the path where we actually do good things. There was a senator from the 42nd who raised the child tax credit last time to 250, and it was just the start. We can do more. That's the type of tax credits that we need. That's the type of progressive system that we need in Georgia to make real difference. I conclude with this. It's a scam, because the families, the hardworking families of Georgia, the average Georgian, they don't make $50,000 or $100,000 as a family to get this full, full standard deduction.

379. 3:45:43

     The only people who we're putting $5,000 back in their pockets are the people who make over six figures. I'm pretty sure my constituents are not excited about that. With that, I yield the well.

380. 3:45:58

     The senator is yielded. Recognize the senator from the 16th.

381. 3:46:17

     Thank you, Mr. President. I appreciate it. I am, uh, very surprised we're giving the people back the money that belongs to them. I think sometimes we have this idea that it belongs to us, but it belongs to them. And we take a lot of their money. You know, it's funny, years ago we had taxed enough already. We had the tea parties out because they had been taxed in a lot of different ways. There's no such thing as public money. It all belongs to the citizens, and we are the stewards of that money.

382. 3:46:48

     And I wanna thank the senator from the 19th for bringing forth this bill, because guess what this is? It's a start. It's a start to return the money to the people.

383. 3:47:01

     You know, inflation is the most universal tax of all, and we are experiencing inflation. A lot of that is government spending money they don't have and what it does. But here's what I wanna give you. This is just the state income tax we're talking about. That's all we're talking about. I have a dollar here, and if you're a self-employed person, here's where- let's start with the whole thing. Let's talk about tax, not just one tax, but the many taxes, because we're just taking a piece and giving back to those that are 50,000 and under. We're giving back th- what belong, what to them, and then those that are married 100.

384. 3:47:36

     But if you're working for yourself, you take this dollar, and you know what? You pay s- 7.65. If you're an employee, you never see that because that's the Social Security part that goes f- your employer is required to take out, out of his money, out, out of his pocket and put it in on your behalf for Social Security. Then you get to put another 7.65 in on your behalf. So we're already at over, what, 15%? That's what I count right there.

385. 3:48:06

     So then we're talking about Georgia right now is 5.19. Well, let's take 5.19 in for the people who are making 50,000 and under. We're gonna really not charge that. We're gonna let them have that money. That's that 2,500 plus that the senator from the 19th was talking about. Well, then you look at the federal side, and it's 10 to 37%. So let's take a little bit more and that portion, and that's what our citizens have left to spend.

386. 3:48:39

     I lied to you. That's not what they have left to spend because there's another 4% sales tax on anything they buy. If you live in the city of Atlanta, it's 8.9%. So that's it. I'm saying this, we have been taxed enough already. This is just a start of what we need to do, and we need to determine this. This money belongs to the people, and the government can't give you anything they don't take away from you first. And that's what we've got to understand, and we are starting to give the taxpayers of Georgia their own money back.

387. 3:49:14

     But we have been taxed enough already. This is my money, so I didn't tear up anybody else's money. But let us understand that the money belongs to the people, not to the government, and we're giving it back. And I believe this, this is the first start to the right move, is to return the money to the people and let them spend it as they need to spend it. Thank you, Mr. President.

388. 3:49:43

     Recognize the senator from 13th.

389. 3:49:58

     Recognize the senator from the 20th.

390. 3:50:03

     These guys, if they wanna talk, they better get back in the chamber.

391. 3:50:17

     Senator from 27th. Drafting you, Mr. President. I'm drafting you, Senator. You'd be a better pinch hitter than some of these other folks anyways. Come on.

392. 3:50:40

     The year was 1913, and for the first time ever, we legalized government taxing labor. It was the passage of the 16th Amendment. It was unconstitutional up until that point in time for government to come into your paycheck, take their share, and give you whatever was left over. Georgia didn't get in the game until 1929, so there are Georgians alive today who are older than the state income tax.

393. 3:51:19

     You see, Democrats would have you believe that you getting to keep all of your money is a radical idea. But I would posture that the government coming in and taking your money that you have earned before you get yours, now that's the radical idea. Democrats would have you believe that they're looking out for the working class.

394. 3:51:44

     That they only oppose this bill this year and this time for some other reason. But here's the reality. Georgia has the highest income tax in the southeast. We are bordered to the north and the south by two states that are at zero. We are bordered to the east by a state that is heading to zero, and we are bordered to the west by a state that is lower than us. When a number of us came into office, our income tax was 6%.

395. 3:52:19

     We went from six to 5.75, and every Democrat voted against it. We then went from 5.75 to po- 5.49. Democrats voted against that. We then went from 5.49 to 5.39. Democrats voted against that. We then went from 5.39 to 5.19. Democrats voted

396. 3:52:45

     against that. Today, we're pro- proposing to go from 5.19 to 4.99. And for the folks at home, just get ready, 'cause Democrats are gonna vote against that, too. But we're going a step further today. We're raising the standard deduction to ensure that 64% of Georgians won't pay any income tax at all. There's a reason, y'all, why the Republican Party is be- is becoming the party of the working class.

397. 3:53:20

     It's because we recognize that we have to shrink the size of government and get more money back into the hands of everyday Georgians. Every single person that votes against this bill is voting for a tax cut for average Georgians. And how are we paying for it? I'm actually kinda shocked because the party, my party, that put a lot of these tax credits into place, frankly, has realized that it's gone too far.

398. 3:53:54

     You see, we don't need to spend $1.3 billion bringing data centers to Georgia. We don't need to spend a couple more million dollars paying people to get their yachts repaired in Georgia. We need to level the playing field, allow businesses to compete, but most importantly, we've gotta let Georgia compete, and we cannot compete with the highest income tax in the southeast. And so for those people watching at home, I wanna just recap the last two weeks in the state Senate for you.

399. 3:54:24

     Democrats voted against a Republican measure to cap the annual increase on your property taxes. For those of you that have double, that have had double-digit property tax increases over the last five years, Democrats want it to continue. Republicans said we're gonna force government to live within its means and only allow them to tax you year over year by an increase that's equal to the amount of inflation. And this year we're saying we're starting the process to end government from coming into your paycheck and taking their share before you ever get a penny of it.

400. 3:55:02

     It's un-American. It should still be unconstitutional. And with that, Mr. President, I yield the will. Bring it in the senator from the 13th.

401. 3:55:27

     Thank you, Mr. President. Colleagues, it seems like we're always divided. I mean, we're always divided when it comes down to the real issues and things like that, and we always have our issues and how we're gonna deal with them and why we can't vote for this, why we can't vote with that. Are we helping this group? Are we not helping this group? Are we taking from this group? We're not taking from that group. Whatever we're talking about. It's always about the division in, in here. And what it boils down to is this right here. It's trust. This committee that I was not on met at least a half a dozen times, I think I'm right about that, over s- over the la- since last year.

402. 3:56:08

     Five times over since last year. Now, if I'm not mistaken, this was a bipartisan committee. This was all of us being represented by the people that was put on that committee to come up with an answer, to come up with a way, to find a way to give relief to Georgians. Now, if I'm missing anywhere, anybody just stand up and say I'm wrong. We're giving relief to Georgians. That's what we're there for. Now, am I 100% satisfied with this bill? I'm not 100% satisfied with any bill, period.

403. 3:56:40

     But it is a s- way, it is a start. It has been measured. It has been looked at and, and vetted, and it's, it's come down to the point where this is how we can give relief. This is the way we can take action to do what we basically promised folks we would do. And everybody keeps saying, "Well, the other states..." Well, let me tell you something. Most of the states around us never had an income tax. We had to figure out how to get rid of income tax. Now, that's... O- once you start have something, it's hard to get rid of something to figure it out.

404. 3:57:13

     So you gotta replace something with something, or either you got nothing. That's a good quote, by the way. Having said that, here's where we are right now. E- th- m- my colleagues on the other side, my Dem colleagues, who I appreciate very much, say, "These things are scams. These things are not it. The money's not adding up. The math doesn't add up. The math isn't the math," or whatever. It doesn't matter how you add it up. It is giving relief to people.

405. 3:57:44

     $100,000 earner or basically under is gonna get some relief on their income tax. Now, if I'm wrong, tell me I'm wrong. They're gonna get relief.

406. 3:57:53

     Okay? I know a ton of people in my district, and I live in South Georgia, folks. They don't make these horrendous salaries that people make up here in the donut. I would venture to say that probably 70% of my people in South Georgia will be tickled to death if they make anywhere from $50,000, $60,000 a year. And yes, it's hard for them to pay rent. It's hard for them to pay childcare. It's hard for them to, you know, put f- food, good quality food on the table and buy gas and oil to go. When they add it all up, they can't even take a vacation with their family.

407. 3:58:24

     There's nothing left over. Three, four, $5,000 will make a difference in their life. It will make a difference in their life. You know, if the Appropriations Chairman stood up here and said, "I'm gonna give every one of y'all a million dollars that y'all can go do what you want to with it," I do believe we'd have issues with it. Some of us would say that ain't enough. Some would, some would say that, w- that, that that's too much, and some would say, "Well, where are you gonna take it from to give it to me, and how are you gonna replace it?" Now, we're talking facetious here and a little bit out- outlandish, but the point is, we are talking about money.

408. 3:59:06

     We're talking about money to put back in people's hands that need it. I would appreciate it. I know every one of you all sitting in here, if fall in that category, would appreciate it. So here's the deal, and I'm gonna spell it out to you in my little simple terms. If this bill fails, what we're saying is we're not really willing to give the people of Georgia income tax relief, because I'll tell you why I said that.

409. 3:59:37

     'Cause we're not gonna have no chance at it. It'll be years before a bill like this would come back before us. It'll be years before we can figure out how to make this happen again. And a lot of people say, well, when House, when the, when the place flips and it goes, uh, minority now controls the majority, that may be the time to do it. Well, I hope that'll be a little time down the road, but the point is, that's not what we're here for. We're here to do it now. Today is what we're here for. We have to stand up and take the hard vote. We have to stand up and say, "We're willing to make the cuts.

410. 4:00:08

     We're willing to make the sacrifices it takes to put money, guys, not Democrat money, not Republican money, money back in the hands of our fellow Georgia citizens." And there's w- a start is income tax relief, and that would put us on par with other cities around us. I'm not gonna get into numbers. I've already heard the numbers here. That will get into the numbers, but the real- reality of it is, is that puts us back on a level playing field that we can all go out together and say, "Hey, now that part of the competition is over.

411. 4:00:45

     We're there. We're done." I ask you to support the bill, even though you may have heartburn with it, because it is a start. Will we get it back? Will there be some changes between now and then? Most assuredly so. The point is, it's what we're all here for. It's what that committee came up with. It's what our peers sat down and th- and worked through all summer to give us what we have here. That's why I'm supporting the bill. That's why I ask you all to support the bill. Mr. President, thank you.

412. 4:01:16

     I yield the floor. The Pro Tem.

413. 4:01:42

     Thank you, Mr. President. So I rise today in wholehearted support of Senate Bill 476, and I'm excited to support this measure, and I would, would like to think that this would get unanimous support in this body. Uh, this is the type of day, the re- the reason I ran for the State Senate is a day like today. I think it's a historic opportunity for us to advance meaningful relief for hardworking Georgia families, and I'm proud to support this bill.

414. 4:02:21

     I'm glad I'm here at this moment in time. Uh, my constituents in Senate D- District 20, you know, they don't necessarily have a lobbyist up here advocating for them. They don't own a big corporation. They don't get special interest tax breaks, but they elected me to fight for them, and I'm proud to be here doing that today. Um, I'm, I wanna commend the lieutenant governor for forming the Senate Special Committee on Eliminating the State Income Tax.

415. 4:02:56

     I wanna commend the chairman of that committee, the senator from the 19th, for doing such a good job. I'm a fiscal conservative. I want to do things that will make Georgia a great state, not just now, but for the long haul, for my grandson, for my grandchildren. I don't wanna do things that are fiscally irresponsible, and I think my track record has proven that in my n- now my 11th year here in the Senate. When I was appointed to this committee, I was skeptical, I'll be honest with you, because I tutored kind of under Senator Jack Hill, and he believed that, uh, you know, we needed a diverse revenue source in Georgia, and he was a s- real, he always stressed the importance of us keeping our AAA bond rating, and I cannot support a measure that I feel like puts that in jeopardy.

416. 4:03:53

     But as we met throughout the interim, and we had a number of meetings all over the state and heard from experts from all over the country-

417. 4:04:01

     I became convinced that this is doable and the people of Georgia need this. $5,000 to a hardworking middle-class Georgia family is meaningful to them. It can be transformational to them. It can help them pay off the credit card debt. It can help them pay childcare. It can help them put groceries on the table. It is a meaningful, uh, tax relief that I am proud to support.

418. 4:04:36

     You know, I've heard it said in this chamber and in committee meetings that the Georgia General Assembly is bad about picking winners and losers, and I think when you see some of the tax exemptions, the sales tax exemptions, the, the special- the, uh, income tax breaks, the incentives in our, in our code now, you would have to agree that sometimes we have picked winners and losers here. And I think I will tell you today we're picking winners and losers too, and the winner will be hardworking Georgia families, and that's who I'm for, and I will never quit fighting for them.

419. 4:05:17

     Thank you, and I yield the way.

420. 4:05:22

     The senator has yielded. Recognize the senator from 31st. Majority Leader. Thank you, Mr. President. While we are here today to debate the Senate's income tax reduction plan, I want to take a moment to provide some context for how we arrived at this point.

421. 4:05:53

     Republicans first cont- took control of state government with Governor Sonny Perdue's election in 2002. At that time, Georgia's income tax rate stood at 6%, where it had remained since 1969. For more than three decades, Democrats controlled state government and had ample opportunity to lower that rate, and they did not. It was only after Republicans took the reins that Georgians began to, began to see meaningful income tax relief.

422. 4:06:29

     Today, the rate stands at 4.99, saving Georgia taxpayers more than $3 billion every single year. Not only have we reduced the rate by over 16%, but in the process we have provided billions in income tax rebates, rebates, uh, to Georgians. The same is true with property taxes. Georgia had a state property tax dating all the way back to 1852.

423. 4:07:01

     1852, y'all. That tax was finally and fully eliminated under Republican leadership in 2015. This progress didn't happen by accident. It took years of responsible conservative budgeting under the leadership of Governors Sonny Perdue, Nathan Deal, Brian Kemp, and great Republican leaders in the State Senate and the State House. It required discipline through hard times, through the COVID pandemic, and through years of skyrocketing inflation under the Biden administration.

424. 4:07:41

     Because of that discipline, we created record surpluses protecting core services and keeping our state on solid financial footing. We also built a business-friendly environment that is the envy of the nation. Georgia offers world-class universities and technical colleges, strong workforce development programs, energy rates below the national average, a competitive tax climate. Businesses of all size can grow and thrive here, creating an opportunity for Georgians who are willing to work hard and support their families.

425. 4:08:18

     Because of that record responsible leadership, Georgia is now in a position to do what Republicans believe in most: returning money to the people who actually earned it. Over the past two months, there has been talk about the House and the Senate, quote-unquote, "fighting" over various property tax and income tax proposals.

426. 4:08:40

     And that's true. We are debating intentionally and thoughtfully the best way to deliver permanent tax relief to hardworking Georgians, and we are doing so because, as Republicans, this is the most important issue we can take on. While Democrats in this chamber are voting for subsidized taxpayer-funded surgeries for transgender inmates, we are working for hardworking families, families trying to put food on the table and pay their bills and build a better future for their children.

427. 4:09:16

     As I've said before, and others have said before, taxation represents a fundamental transfer of decision-making power from individuals to bureaucrats. When government can claim an unlimited share of your income through taxation, you are never free. You are a subject of the government and not a citizen. To our viewers watching this at home, what we see today is leadership. That is responsible government, and Republicans will continue to lead the fight to ensure Georgia's taxpayers always come first.

428. 4:09:54

     Democrats will vote against affordability today. They will vote against you, the citizens, being able to have, being able to have more money in your pocket.

429. 4:10:04

     for childcare, school supplies, an oil change, pay your energy bill, pay your insurance bill. Democrats will vote against Georgians from having other necessities like a MARTA bus card, groceries, rent, and other expenses. Republicans are focused on a government contin- committed to doing more with less. We believe that Georgia families, not government bureaucrats, are best positioned to decide how to spend their money.

430. 4:10:37

     Thank you, Mr. President. Yield the well.

431. 4:10:44

     Thank you, Senator. Senator's yielded. Senator from the 38th.

432. 4:11:08

     Thank you, Mr. President. Colleagues, today I rise on behalf of working class families sitting at the kitchen table across Georgia. The parents trying to stretch a paycheck, the seniors choosing between groceries and prescriptions, and the young families wondering how they will afford childcare next month. So let me begin with something important. My Republican colleagues are right. People are hurting. Costs are up, housing is, is expensive, and healthcare premiums, healthcare premiums are rising, and Georgians want relief.

433. 4:11:46

     One thing you failed to mention, many folks have failed to mention, is that healthcare premiums are rising. But this chamber, the majority party, decides to do nothing about that. But at the end of the day, we agree on the problem. And I want to share one other problem that exists. All of us in the State of Georgia and across this country are paying $1,000 more per year on everyday costs.

434. 4:12:19

     That was fair- failed to be mentioned yet again by the majority party because of their president's tariffs. They don't speak out against that. So this bill is not relief. It's actually a tax shift, with an F, dressed up as a tax cut. When you look beyond the headline, the numbers tell a very different story. Independent analysis shows that shifting away from income tax forces Georgia to rely more on sales tax, the most regressive form of taxation that exists, placing a larger burden on working and middle class families while giving the biggest benefits to those at the top.

435. 4:13:03

     You cannot remove billions from our revenue without serious consequences. The senator for the 19th had a beautiful presentation. Also had drama in it, ripped some paper apart. So it sounded great today, but this is the thing. It's going to cost you, the firemen, the store clo- clerk, the store clerk that he referenced, you're gonna have to pay for it tomorrow. And here is what those consequences will look like for everyday Georgians.

436. 4:13:36

     Ex- experts estimate that replacing income tax revenue will require dramatically raising our sales taxes, potentially pushing combined state and local rates to around 15% or more. That means higher costs every time a family checks out at the register. Right now, if a parent spends $100 on back to school clothes, they pay about $107 with today's tax rates. But under this kind of plan, at some point, those purchases are gonna cost $115 or more.

437. 4:14:09

     That's not a tax cut. That's another burden that families are gonna have to pay. Let's think about a working family that is going to fill up twice a week. Every time they stop at the gas station for snacks for the kids to, you know, sometimes buy basic necessities, all those things are gonna cost more. Over a year, families could pay hundreds more just running everyday errands, eating up whatever small income tax savings they were promised.

438. 4:14:40

     A $200 school supply run today will cost about $214. Under a much higher tax rate, that total jumps to about $230. For households with multiple children, that difference adds up, especially when families are s- already stretched thin. Imagine your refrigerator goes out, $1,200 today. It breaks down, but tomorrow you will have to pay about $1,380, nearly another car payment just in taxes.

439. 4:15:15

     So let's be honest about the truth. You might save a few hundred dollars once a year on paper from an income tax reduction, but you will pay eight, 10, or $12 more every single time you swipe your card. That is not relief. That is shifting the burden onto the middle class. And while families, families pay more at the register, those proposals creates a massive hole in our budget, threatening the very programs that keeps our community strong and keeps this state going.

440. 4:15:51

     The child tax credit that helps parents make ends meet, affordable housing initiatives, childcare assistance that keeps parents in the workforce, workforce development programs that helped make Georgia the Hollywood of the South. While the argument may be, "Hey, it's not in this bill. We're good today," I assure you these cuts will be coming. We will have to answer for this tomorrow. Income taxes fund the majority of these investments and without them we are not changing a tax policy, we are actually changing the kind of state that Georgia is.

441. 4:16:30

     Studies have already shown that lower and middle class income Georgians pay a higher share of their income tax, of their income in taxes than the wealthiest households. Doubling down on sales tax only makes that imbalance worse. So I ask this chamber, how does raising taxes at the checkout line actually help working families? How does cutting revenue for schools and healthcare lower the cost of living? How does shifting billions in responsibility from the wealthiest Georgians to folks struggling day to ta- day to day make our economy stronger?

442. 4:17:07

     Because nothing in this bill lowers rent, nothing lowers grocery prices, nothing reduces childcare costs or prescription drugs. It simply changes who pays. Colleagues, Georgians deserve relief, not a plan that sounds good in the press but leaves families paying more every single day. So I would argue that we should slow down, show the math, let us protect the programs that keep families stable, and until we do that, I cannot in good conscience support Senate Bill 476.

443. 4:17:43

     So today, I must vote no and I encourage my colleagues to do the same. Mr. President, I yield the will. Senator's yielding. Bring it down to the senator from the 22nd.

444. 4:18:14

     Thank you, Mr. President. Just go over a few things. If this was normal times and not an election year, this, this statement right here w- would be what Republicans would be running on by the Georgia Public Policy Foundation, conservative think tank. The overall tax burden that Georgia charges its residents, meaning the average of all the state and local taxes residents pay as a percentage of our average income, is eighth lowest in the country.

445. 4:18:45

     Eighth lowest in the country by a conservative think tank. Eighth lowest in the country, just written 2025. And that, that matches South Carolina's even slightly better than Florida. That's what you usually would run on. You would say you've been good public stewards. Got the eighth lowest average tax overall, overall tax in the nation. But these aren't normal times, so therefore you have to come out and say everyone's overtaxed and Georgia's taxes are too high, it's the worst ever.

446. 4:19:15

     But when you do that, just make sure you blame, put the blame on yourself. Y'all are in the majority. So if you, when you go give that speech out in the different little neighborhood associations or chamber of commerce and you say all that, make sure you say, "We're the ones been overtaxing you." Don't say what the truth actually is, that it's basically the eighth lowest in the nation. Make sure you say, us. Repu- don't, don't put it on Democrats. Don't put it on trans folks. Don't put it on DEI. Don't put it on women. You put it right squarely on you, that you've been overtaxing everybody, if that's what you believe. 'Cause your think tank, not, that's not GBPI, that's your think tank, conservative think tank, they say it's the eighth lowest.

447. 4:19:51

     So that's kinda like how we start off w- about how disingenuous all of this is. That's the beginning part of it. Now, we start talking about other states. Florida and Tennessee never had, Florida and Texas never had an income tax. Tennessee never really relied upon it when we talk about that. So when you tell your folks, when you go out and tell your folks that, I want you, if you li- represent an urban area, I want you to make sure now you tell them that Texas spends the lowest amount almost on the nation in transportation.

448. 4:20:23

     So those of you who represent some urban areas, metro areas, you make sure you say, "Texas doesn't have any income tax, but guess what? They spend the lowest amount on transportation." I know transportation's a issue for metro areas. We're gonna follow Texas. So make sure you bring that out to them, 'cause all y'all are running around talking about these states, but al- al- also say the negative parts of what's actually going on. Those of you in the rural areas, since when people wanna talk about rural areas, I want you to also say that Texas doesn't have an income tax, but they spend the lowest amount on healthcare in the nation. That's who you wanna follow.

449. 4:20:53

     Make sure you bring that out too now. Don't just, don't just throw out, uh, states. Make sure you give the truth about these states. That's the key. Now, when you start this song and dance about being competitive with these other states, now make sure you remind them, tell your, tell your constituents now that our incomes are actually higher than theirs. Make sure you tell your constituents that now. When you go out and you give this song and da- oh my God, we can't compete with Florida and Texas and Tennessee and no other state in the union, you just make sure you r- you, you tell them our income's actually higher than theirs.

450. 4:21:24

     So make sure you give the full picture when you're actually talking about these things. And then if you keep insisting that we can't be competitive and we can't be competitive, we're not competitive, then once again, when you make that insistence, I want you to ma- make the point that you've been in charge. So we're not competitive and we're no good, that's your fault. That's not ours. That's on you. So I look forward to you making that statement, 'cause y'all been talking about being number one state for business forever and ever and ever. So now you're gonna say we're overtaxed and we're no good.

451. 4:21:55

     Fine, just make sure you say that's under your rule. That's under your purview. Now, someone's gonna ask you, "Well, how do you pay for it? How do you pay for these kinda tax cuts? How do you pay for it?" And we know we're gonna talk about eliminating exemptions going up to 2032, which is n- really smoke and mirrors quite frankly.

452. 4:22:15

     But number one reason how people pay for it is through higher sales tax. That's just statistical fact. Tennessee has one of the highest sales taxes in the nation. Same with Florida and Ten- and Texas. What people do when they do this, and of course, Georgia will be the only state that actually is doing it this way. A- Alaska is the other, but they struck oil. How they did it was through higher sales tax, and that's why people keep coming up here and say higher sales tax, and at the end of the day, it's gonna be a trust thing. I'm gonna tell the people of Georgia why you should trust what we're telling you is true and not what the Republicans are telling you is true.

453. 4:22:48

     But all of these states have higher sales taxes than Georgia, and those states that have been prominently mentioned have some of the highest sales taxes in the nation. And the reason is clear, because once you do that, for instance, within Texas, 84% of their whole revenue depends on sales tax, 75% in Florida depends on their sales tax. So obviously, that sales tax has to be very high. The other way that money's got is through a state property tax, and we're not talking about car tax. Talking about real estate property taxes.

454. 4:23:18

     Georgia doesn't have one. So there's two ways that this happened. Only two. Higher sales taxes and higher state property taxes. What you guys are trying to propose is this third way, this third magic way that you've created out of whole cloth, and we'll get to that in one second. But the two ways that every other state has met this, and, but, and, and the problem is you know it, is through higher sales tax and a state property tax. And you're talking about property taxes being high now, the state would actually have to create its own property tax. So let's go to the part that you're insisting upon about the exemptions, 'cause that's very, uh, very interesting.

455. 4:23:54

     Because I want you to make sure when you tell your folks this about ending exemptions or percentage of exemptions or whatever, clearly says in 2032 all exemptions go away, um, make sure you tell them now, when they ask, "Well, I thought these exemptions helped bring jobs to Georgia." Make sure you tell them now that you've been wasting their money on these things. That it's just corporate welfare, it's not jobs. Make sure you tell them Republicans have been doing this now for 15 years, that y'all have been just sitting around wasting Georgians' money on this stuff, 'cause it hadn't brought no jobs. It hadn't done anything good for Georgia. That you guys have been voting year in and year out, 'cause we're in the minority, for any of these kind of exemptions.

456. 4:24:29

     You guys are the ones that go to the press and say that, that these exemptions are good and that they work and they bring jobs. Make sure you tell them now that you have not been honest with them and you've been wasting their tax money all of these years when you go and say that these exemptions don't bring jobs. 'Cause that's basically what you're trying to convince them of. The fact of the matter is this is the scenario that's going to play out,

457. 4:24:51

     and this is how it will actually happen. W- Number one, what you call corporate welfare, I call jobs. That's the difference. That's very ... And it's interesting how the, how it's turned now that it's election year. Now all of a sudden, a Georgian's job is welfare. It's interesting when you wanna get elected to something, a Georgian's job is now welfare. I want you to make sure you tell your constituents that. Make sure you tell the same constituents that you went and talked about the tax credit that you got that brought such and such company to Georgia and it helped you get a job and you got on your pedestal.

458. 4:25:27

     I want you to say that that job is nothing more than welfare and I'm gonna take it from you. Make sure you do that now, 'cause that's what you claiming today. But that's the key, because the 2032 is key. Down the line is key, 'cause any of this stuff can be repealed because that's the key. Because what's going to happen is you pass this, and the reality of the situation is that Georgia has relied on these tax credits to bring jobs. And then what's going to take place is somebody's gonna come up here with a nice calm voice and say, "We've talked to our friends and they said that we need to keep the credits, but we've got to find a way to get the money.

459. 4:26:08

     And the only thing we can do now is do exactly what you guys said we were gonna be doing, raising sales tax and raising property taxes." That's what's gonna happen. Because the fact of the matter is Georgia doesn't attract jobs any other way. Most southern states rely on tax credits. Georgia's the number three as far as tax credits within the nation, as far as relying on them to bring jobs in. There's a reason for that. Their healthcare isn't any good. It's 48th in the doggone nation. We're not top five, top 10, top 20 in education, so that's not bringing anybody here.

460. 4:26:38

     You know, when we start talking about childcare, that's some of the worst in the na- nation as far as cost is concerned. Poverty is w- is higher than the national average. Child poverty is hi- higher than the national average. Our overall cost of living, basically our overall living arrangement is 39th. I believe one of the senators mentioned that this morning. So the only thing we got to attract jobs is those tax credits. We don't have anything else. And why do you think most southern states basically rely on those tax credits? 'Cause their healthcare is no good, their schools are failing. They're basically gutting schools for vouchers. Same thing. That's why if you look at where, where most tax credits go, southern states.

461. 4:27:10

     And what you guys are now proposing is we're gonna get rid of it. The one thing that's driven our economic engine, we're gonna get rid of. You're not gonna do it. This is, this is foolishness. And so what's gonna happen is you pass this, come back, say, "We, well, we actually learned..." The same way now you're claiming you learned. "Well, we learned they don't really work." You'll come back and say, "Well, we learned they actually do work, but we gotta find the money, and we hate to do it, and it'll be incremental sales tax increases." It's a little small. All of a sudden, some state property tax will be created, and that's where we're gonna go. And so the question becomes, who to trust?

462. 4:27:44

     Who should Georgians trust on this issue? Well, I would say you trust the persons, Georgians, who have been trying from day one, Democratic Caucus, to raise the minimum wage. I would say you trust those who have been trying to lower childcare costs. I would say you trust those that have been trying to provide healthcare to rural communities. I would say you trust those that have been talking about over the last 10 years for a needs-based scholarship, not just for the last month. I would say you trust those that have been talking about having an earned income tax credit.

463. 4:28:16

     I would say you trust those that from day one have been trying to help you and your family, and not trust those who have gutted healthcare, not trust those who sit up there and say, "I'm for rural Georgia," but won't stand up to get doggone Medicaid expansion. Not trust those who say, "I'm for rural Georgia," but the only tax credit that apparently this administration wants or this Republicans want is a new tax credit by the Trump administration, basically continue to gut public education. It's a new tax credit will give vouchers, which most articles say will destroy public education in rural communities. So don't stand up talking about you for r- rural communities.

464. 4:28:48

     Where are you when we having these fights? Where are you when you wanna do minimum wage? Where are you when you wanna do healthcare? Where are you when, when you try to do lower childcare costs? So who you wanna trust? The thing is clear. You can trust those who've already been on your side from day one, or you can trust those who already told you today early they lied to you. And with that, I yield the floor. Senator yield and recognize senator from 46

465. 4:29:35

     Thank you, Mr. President. Senators, when you've been here a while, you, you get to the point where you feel like you've seen it all, and lo and behold, you turn around and you get blindsided by something else that just sort of shocks you how things change over time. I'm gonna keep this concise, trying just to rebut some of the misstatements that I've heard, uh, here this, this morning and this afternoon. You know, the Democratic Party used to be known as the champions of the middle class, the working class, and the Republicans were the big, bad, rich people looking after business interest and the wealthy.

466. 4:30:22

     That narrative is completely flipped now. Donald Trump is our president today because of his advocacy for blue-collar workers, for hardworking middle-class Americans, and he showed what they mattered to the Republican Party. That's who this bill helps. Working-class people, middle-class people, they get the tax break. Only the people that make less than fifty thousand per person or less than a hundred thousand per couple get to go tax-free.

467. 4:30:59

     Zero income tax. And how are we making up that revenue? We're taxing the rich, and we're taxing corporate America. All the corporate special interest that we're giving tax breaks, tax credits, tax deductions, they lose them. That means they are now going to be paying that tax that we've been letting them off the hook for. And by them paying the tax, it's gonna let our less wealthy people, our individuals, keep that money in their pocket.

468. 4:31:35

     So you're still looking, are you a party that wants government to take care of all of our needs, take our money, and then decide how to distribute it, or you wanna let us keep it in our own pockets so that we can afford to buy the things we want to? This has got nothing to do with tariffs. There is no data that establishes that any tariff has raised inflation. The inflation problem came from the Biden administration with seventeen, eighteen, nineteen percent inflation that we are now fighting trying to recover from and lower those costs.

469. 4:32:14

     Well, that is a frustrating thing to be in state government and being asked to try to make things more affordable to Georgia citizens. We have very few tools in our toolbox to lower costs. We can't go put rent controls on, on, uh, housing people. We can't go to the grocery store and say, "No, you can't raise your prices. You can't charge but X amount." That is beyond the power of government. But what we can do is put more money in your pockets.

470. 4:32:45

     So when you get your paycheck, just for round numbers, if you made a hundred thousand a year, you and your wife, you're gonna pay five thousand of that to the government today. Tomorrow, once we pass this bill, you're gonna pay zero of it to the government, and you're gonna have five thousand more in your paycheck to spend however you want. So that means you have more money. Things are more affordable to you. All of this talk about this being a break for the rich is the exact opposite.

471. 4:33:20

     This is a progressive tax plan. If you make more than a hundred thousand, you're paying five percent on that money. Lower income people are paying less percentage tax than higher income people under this plan. All the talk about sales taxes. There is not one peep of a word in this bill about sales taxes. We are not raising sales taxes in this bill. We are taking the savings from taking away tax breaks that have been given to corporations and passing that savings on to hardworking Georgia families.

472. 4:34:01

     You know, I was sitting there. I mean, we sh- th- this ought to be bipartisan. It helps all of our people, Democratic voters, Republican voters. And I, I feel sorry sometimes for the minority party because you have this knee-jerk reaction, "We gotta fight any Republican-sponsored bill." You don't have to. Senator from the thirty-fifth made an eloquent statement down here early on in the session, and he said, "I'm here to do what's good for our people. I don't want to feel obligated to have to vote a party line.

473. 4:34:35

     I'm gonna look after my people." Well, we're giving him a chance today to do that. Giving all of you that chance. I wonder some days if a Republican-sponsored bill came out and said, "Well, here's what we wanna do. Democrats don't have to pay income taxes. Republicans do." What arguments could y'all find to oppose it? I bet you could come up with something because I don't see any rational reason to object to this. Okay. W- what if we couldn't afford it? The bill shows how you afford it, but, but what if we misjudge?

474. 4:35:06

     I'm gonna tell you, the senator from the nineteenth has underestimated the amount of the tax credits and tax deductions. Every time we pass one, they end up costing us more than we thought. He has been extremely conservative. More than likely, we're gonna generate more money from having closed those loopholes that makes this easier. But, but what if we're wrong? What if, what if we messed up here, and we really can't afford it? We got $14 billion sitting in reserves where we have over-taxed our people for the last five or six years.

475. 4:35:39

     That reserve has been, been going up almost two billion a year. We are charging our citizens more money than it costs to run this government to provide the services. If we miss this somehow by a billion dollars, just take one of those billion out of reserve and now we still got 13 billion. Our revenue shortfall reserve is fully funded at over five billion, more than 15% of an annual budget. We have the flexibility to give our citizens a break, let them keep more money in their pocket so they can afford these things that have gotten so out of hand.

476. 4:36:22

     We, we keep hearing different arguments. Sales taxes are coming. Sales tax coming. These other states have sales taxes. We're getting our brains beat in competitively by Florida, Tennessee, and Texas. Look at all the businesses going to Austin, Texas, going there from California. Look at them going to Tennessee and Florida because it's zero income tax. The writing is on the wall because all of those people's employees want to live in a state where they're not taxed out of their income, or at least they're reasonably taxed.

477. 4:36:57

     And this does... You know, I kept reading the headlines in the paper, we're gonna eliminate the income tax. This does not eliminate the income tax. It reduces it by one percentage point, you know, to 4.99%. It just eliminates it for lower income earning families, the people that need the relief the most. How can you say no to this? The argument about transportation, oh, be careful, our roads are gonna just fall apart if we don't do this. Look at Texas, they don't spend money on roads.

478. 4:37:28

     No, no. Our roads are not funded by the income tax. We have a dedicated tax, our transportation tax is on motor fuel. The people that use the roads pay the tax, and that generates $2 billion a year to keep us one of the finest transportation systems in the country. This doesn't touch that income stream at all. It's still there. When you say that we are saying to those that make six figures or more, you won't have to pay income taxes, that is not a true statement.

479. 4:38:02

     If you're making over six figures, over 100, you are gonna pay income taxes. We're just gonna trim it a slight amount for you. This is a fair program that's tilted towards those that need it the most. Those that earn the least get the most benefit from this plan. I'm proud to do that. And I think it, it, you know, it's been such a dynamic for the Republican Party as we have now broadened our base and we are appealing. We're now the party of the working class because we're fighting for you.

480. 4:38:39

     We're giving you more money in your pocket to help navigate your way through these tough times financially. We hadn't gotten to bill number two. Somebody made a comment, I think it was the senator from the 19th, read the legislation before you criticize it. You know, this doesn't eliminate a lot of tax credits I would love to eliminate. I have a reputation of voting for every tax cut there is and voting against every tax credit, tax deduction, because I don't think we ought to be picking winners and losers out of industries.

481. 4:39:11

     This makes all of the lower income, harder working people winners.

482. 4:39:19

     There is another bill coming behind this, and I've read it, and it deals in a more, more finite manner reducing the income tax levels. Well, if you think any of this thing helps corporations or the poor, you're gonna notice in that bill that it gets the income tax rate down to 3.99 for individuals, but only 4.99 for corporations. Nothing in here is weighted to help the rich, the wealthy, the corporations. It's aimed at the hardworking Georgia families that need relief.

483. 4:39:52

     I'm enthusiastically voting yes, and I ask you all to take off the, the R and D labels and blinders and vote for what's best for Georgia. Thank you. I yield the will.

484. 4:40:07

     Senator yield the will. Chair recognizes the senator from the 14th to speak to the measure.

485. 4:40:30

     Thank you, Mr. President. It's not Christmas, but I do want to ask, have you seen the movie It's a Wonderful Life? Anybody? Every 8:00 PM Christmas Eve on NBC. NBC didn't pay me to say that. Uh, that was a childhood tradition of mine, uh, growing up in East Cobb Counties. We'd watch It's a Wonderful Life on Christmas Eve in my household. Um, it's a story of George Bailey, a guy whose family owns, uh, a humble business, the, the Bailey Building and Loan.

486. 4:41:05

     And y'all know what a building and loan is. Building and loan, uh, is sort of like a credit union. It's a, uh, it's a, it's a financial institution, not a bank, that can take investments from ordinary folks and then, uh, offer loans to build houses, uh, small single-family homes that are modest, but quality, affordable, and then the money

487. 4:41:27

     becomes equity, right? That everybody's got equity in each other's homes. And so it's a pro-social community way to build the opportunity for affordable home ownership in Bedford Falls, which is the name of the fictitious town where It's a Wonderful Life takes place. And I won't, you know, comprehensively recite the plot of It's a Wonderful Life, but suffice it to say that George Bailey, the protagonist, uh, faces a crunch. He faces a, an economic crisis in the community of Bedford Falls. Uh, it's around the wartime, right? It's like World War II era.

488. 4:41:57

     It came out, I think it's Frank Capra, right? It came out in the 1940s. And, uh, and he has to reassure investors in the building and loan that they need to keep their money in the building and loan even though there's a crunch because it's critical to affordable housing in the community of Bedford Falls. And every good story needs an antagonist. And the antagonist in It's a Wonderful Life is a robber baron named Henry, I think it's Henry F. Potter. But he's Mr. Potter.

489. 4:42:28

     And Mr. Potter in that film is synonymous with greed, synonymous with, uh, capitalist exploitation. Any window of opportunity he sees to extract wealth and value for himself, he will take it. And granted, it's a bit of a caricature, kind of a reductive, uh, look at one man, but he's meant to symbolize some very powerful forces in society who seek at every opportunity to make a buck. And if they can make a buck off the little guy, the low income guy, that's what they're gonna do and we all know that those folks are out there.

490. 4:43:05

     The author of this legislation is the leading fundraiser for the Office of Lieutenant Governor of Georgia on the Republican side. He's got over $2 million in the bank. And I would humbly submit to you that the people that he is talking to today and trying to sell this bill to, lower income working families, are not the folks filling up that bank account with $2 million. Follow the money. The people who want this bill are the people who own car dealerships.

491. 4:43:36

     They're the people who own big businesses throughout the state who are expecting Republican government to persist in 2027 and are making sure to fund that outcome and make sure that that happens. And I wanna talk about a scene from It's a Wonderful Life that reminds me a lot, this debate reminds me a lot of. There's an economic crisis in the town of Bedford Falls. So what happens? The bank starts to fail. Mr. Potter, who owns most of the businesses in town already, takes over the bank. And when he takes over the bank, he starts calling loans.

492. 4:44:09

     And he calls the loan for the building and loan. And there's, they have a little mishap. It's a little plot device where they misplace some money, but the building and loan is underwater. They're in trouble. So what happens? All of those investors who own their quality, affordable, smaller homes, but, but dignity, dignified homes in Bedford Falls run to the office of the building and loan and they demand their money out of the building and loan. Why? 'Cause they can't get money out of the bank. There's been a run on the bank. So they need their money and they need it now. And you hear several of the townspeople in Bedford Falls say, "I got bills to pay.

493. 4:44:41

     I can't make it till next week. I can't make it till next month." And George Bailey is faced with the prospect that all of a sudden, just like there was a run on the bank, all of the people who need their money and need it now are gonna bankrupt the building and loan. Because if everybody in Bedford Falls asks for all their money back immediately, the building and loan would not have enough money to cover its liabilities and the building and loan would come o- would, would go under. Well, there's also a scene prior to that in the movie where Mr. Potter is working with one of his associates, one of the guys who works for the machine.

494. 4:45:15

     And they're looking at, at, at Bailey Park, which is all of the beautiful small homes that the c- townspeople in Bedford Falls own because of George Bailey, the underdog, the protagonist of the film. And, and the associate says to Mr. Potter, you know, it's like a back room with the cigars, right? They're planning their economic domination. And the associate says to Mr. Potter, "Look at this Bailey Park with these sprawling beautiful homes that are affordable to the every man, to the, to the average Joe. It's a problem.

495. 4:45:46

     That park is a problem because that's land that we don't own. That's housing that we're not charging rent for, that we're not making money off of. It's something in Bedford Falls that we don't have our hands on."

496. 4:46:00

     So when there's a run on the building and loan and all the people come to get their money back, George Bailey has to give, it's one of those inspired speeches, right? It's like the wartime speech where he's gotta reassure all the people in the community that they, they can't cut and run. They can't just give up now. And I, I would do a, um, Jimmy Stewart impression, but the well's too dignified for that. But he says, "Tom, Tom Randall, now wait, listen, listen to me. I beg of you not to do this thing. If Potter gets hold of the building and loan, there'll never be another decent house built in this town.

497. 4:46:35

     He's already got charge of the bank. He's got the bus line. He's got the department stores and now he's after us. Why? Well, it's very simple, because we're cutting in on his business. That's why, and because he wants to keep you living in his slums and paying the kind of rent that he decides. Joe, you lived in one of his houses, didn't you? Well, have you forgotten? Have you forgotten what he charged you for that broken down shack? Here, Ed, you remember things, you know, last year when things were going so well you couldn't make your payments. You didn't lose your house, did you?

498. 4:47:07

     Do you think Potter would've let you keep it? Can't you understand what's happening here? Don't you see what's happening? Potter isn't selling. Potter is buying. And why? Because we're panicking and he's not. That's why. He's picking up some bargains. Now we can get through this thing all right. We've got to stick together though. We've got to have faith in each other." Now, the reason he had to give that speech is because the, the move that Potter made in this window of opportunity, and I promise I'll get to my point, is that Potter tried to buy all of the shares of the building and loan for 50 cents on the dollar.

499. 4:47:40

     50 cents on the dollar. He said, "You can get your money from me today, but you gotta give me your shares in the building and loan, I'll give you half of what they're worth." So some of the townspeople who need that money, they're ready to go. They're ready to sell their shares in the building and loan on the cheap for 50 cents, because that's money today. Folks, this debate is bigger than this one bill. I actually think that the senator from the 19th is a talented politician. I think he's one of the most talented politicians in this building, and I think he's put together a compelling narrative package for the people of Georgia to run on this year in 2026, and that narrative is, we worry about affordability, we got an affordability crisis.

500. 4:48:21

     Well, what's the fastest way I can give you your money back other than to slash the state income tax? And make no mistake, you know, you hear a lot at, from the well today about, "Well, this bill doesn't have that. This bill doesn't say this, this bill doesn't say that." We've been looking at months of headlines that this chamber, the Senate Republican leadership, wants to eliminate the state income tax entirely. That's half the state budget. They wanna get rid of it. Now, I'm not a math major, and I know most of Georgia's not a math major, but something's gotta give. If you're gonna eliminate half the state budget over time...

501. 4:48:52

     Now, they'll, they'll, they'll come up and say, "That's not in the bill. That's not in the bill." But if you eliminate half the state budget, you gotta replace it with something. That's just simple logic. That's basic common sense. Otherwise, we're gonna cut all the services that we do have. And let me submit to you that when Potter says, "I'm gonna take your shares for 50 cents on the dollar," Potter is not saying, "And I'm gonna build you a bunch of slums and raise your affordable housing and put you in slums where the water doesn't heat and the appliances break and you never get maintenance." He doesn't say that.

502. 4:49:25

     If, if Senate Republicans were representing Mr. Potter in court, they would be saying right now, "Well, that's not in the bill. Mr. Potter never said he was gonna put you in a slum. All he said is he wants to buy your shares for 50 cents. That's all he said, so don't, don't act like he wants to do anything else." But what does Potter really want? Well, the movie tells us, because when George Bailey lives an alternate reality, right? He's contemplating ending it all because he's so depressed, and an angel shows George Bailey what life would be like if it weren't for George Bailey. If it weren't for George Bailey, what would the name of Bedford Falls be?

503. 4:49:56

     Anybody remember? Pottersville, where he doesn't just own most of the town, he owns all the towns. And it's not the cute, crafty, you know, small arts and crafts storefronts on the main street. It's strip clubs and bars and nightlife and vices and anything, you know, Trumpy, right? That, that's flashy and gets attention and is made of gold. Entertainment and cheap thrills is what Pottersville turns into because the building and loan collapses in that world.

504. 4:50:28

     State government isn't that sexy. State government is, is a something that Grover Norquist wants to drown in a bathtub famously. But what is state government? State government is affordable housing. It's us working together to solve our problems, and this bill does cut the low-income housing tax credit, a credit that enabled 60 projects last year for thousands and thousands of units of affordable housing. It's your public schools. State government is making sure that we've got top-paid teachers in the classroom attracting good talent so that we can learn innovation, like some of our schools are trying out, but most of our schools deserve access to, is innovation that can help our students learn not just basic literacy, but let's compete with China, right?

505. 4:51:15

     But where is our state government now? Our state government is, and I gotta commend the senator from the 4th, he does amazing work on literacy. But why are we 20 years behind on it? Why are we 20 years behind on something we should be getting right and we should've been getting right from the '90s until now? Why is it that when I go to Retirement Committee, we're constantly having conversations about how to fudge the pension numbers so that police officers and teachers can get the promise of some kind of payment on the back end so that they can stay in their jobs because we have a retention crisis 'cause we're losing state employees?

506. 4:51:45

     What about our prisons where the walls are crumbling and people can break a piece off the wall and make a shank, or the locks don't work on the doors, so we gotta put master locks on, which is a fire hazard? Otherwise, people get murdered in cells, and the GDC is having a hard time keeping up with even who's where in what cells when murders happen, and they don't know who to put the finger on 'cause the guards aren't saying anything about it. What about behavioral health and the fact that we don't have enough beds for people in mental health crisis? The list goes on and on. State government in Georgia is our building and loan.

507. 4:52:17

     State government is our cooperation with one another to try to solve the most pressing problems we've got. So when I hear voices up here today saying, "Republicans are for affordability. Republicans are the underdog," imagine Mr. Potter pretending to be the underdog. Imagine Mr. Potter saying, "I'm for the little guy. That's why I'm offering you 50 cents a share on your shares in the building and loan." Mr. Potter's not for the little guy, and Georgians are smarter than this.

508. 4:52:48

     I mean, one of the most cynical things about this debate is that, I mean, the Republican Party in this debate is very smug. Very smug because you think that you have a stranglehold on how politics works. You think tax cuts are easy money politically, that this is gonna do shock and awe politically for your base. "And how could you vote against this?" I've heard that from several members. "How could you vote against giving money back to people? Imagine being in the room with the building and loan. How could you vote against giving these people 50 cents on the dollar today?" Why? Because that might be today, but next week, next month, their affordable homes go away.

509. 4:53:22

     Next year, the slums get built in their place. And for the 10 to 20 years after that, people are struggling even more to get by in the slums that follow when we cut off our most basic services. Georgia is in the bottom 20% nationally for per capita government investment. Georgia is in the bottom 20% nationally for median income. You heard the minority leader, that we're eighth to last. On metrics where we shouldn't be... It's the opposite because we're the eighth most populous state.

510. 4:53:53

     We're a big state with over 11 million people. We have a lot of needs. But in Pottersville, in that alternate reality where Potter owns everything, people are defeated. That's why Potter gets away with it because what do the people in Pottersville believe about their lives? This is as good as it gets. It can't be better than this. There's no vision for how we could work together. Of course, there's a bunch of bars and strip clubs on the main street. Of course, there's no access to affordable housing because that's just the breaks. That's just what life is like.

511. 4:54:23

     And in Georgia, the analogy's easy. When there's not an OBGYN in a significant percentage of Georgia counties, when you have to drive 60 minutes for emergency care because there's no primary or specialty care doctor in your district, a lot of the attitudes of Republican electeds and people who have been taught helplessness, who have learned helplessness because their state government is not proactive in meeting these needs, they have been taught to believe that that's just the way that it is. But what about the minority whip? Remember her speech about the child tax credit. We had one federally that cut child poverty in half.

512. 4:54:55

     It would cost the same amount of money that we're spending on this. We could do a child tax credit for $6 to $9 billion, depending on how you wanna do it, and you would cut child poverty in half, and then what? Those kids can afford for their parents not to have to work two, three, four, five jobs. Those parents can send their kids to get a quality education. Those kids don't have to worry about working themselves to facilitate the family's finances. Those kids have more educational and work opportunities because they've left the poverty trap. What about an earned i- income tax credit?

513. 4:55:26

     What about all the ways that we could be investing in working families, but the majority, speaking on behalf of Mr. Potter, wants you to believe that that stuff's just not possible. It's not realistic. For $700 million, we could fund the entire enhanced subsidy program that we lost federally up to 400% of the poverty line. And all we have to do is raise premium taxes on insurance companies making profits in the billions with a B and raise our cigarette tax just a little bit to the national average, and we'd be able to pay for those healthcare subsidies.

514. 4:55:58

     But what are we doing? We're cutting the state budget by $6 to $9 billion. And it's a little too on the nose, the Potter analogy, folks, because Mr. Potter said, "I'll give you 50 cents on the dollar," and the appropriations chairman is doing 50% of the math. He's saying this only costs $3 billion. Folks, he's just counting from July 1st to December 31st. That's how the fiscal year works. Georgians are smarter than that. They know that six months is half the year. And when you do this program in 2027, it costs $6 billion for the whole year, not $3 billion for half the year.

515. 4:56:34

     And then if you add in the tax rate cut that's coming in the other bill, that's another $3 billion, making the total cost $9 billion per year. Bailey Building and Loan in Bedford Falls, that's the last thing that community's got. They're hanging on by a thread, and I humbly submit to you, colleagues, that so are we. Georgia is hanging on by a thread, and no amount of Keep Chopping and no amount of this magazine that, you know, is funded by somebody familiar to us says we're the number one state to do business for the 957th year in a row.

516. 4:57:06

     None of that is gonna cover up for the fact that this state is hanging on, and the affordability crisis we're talking about is not solved by a senseless tax cut that Brian Kemp's gonna veto on site. On site, he's gonna veto that. This is election year stuff. So last thing I'll say is this: I'm glad the senator from the 27th brought up history. Do y'all know why the income tax was created in 1929? What was going on then? The robber barons had been dominating the economy and politics for decades by the time that 1929 rolled around.

517. 4:57:42

     And nationally, the income tax, the federal one was enacted a few years before, was a response to runaway wealth concentrated in the hands of a few billionaire tycoons who ran everything. Another interesting backdrop to that period of time historically was the existence of tariffs. Why? Because the Industrial Revolution was happening, right? Post-Civil War industry in the United States, tariffs were in place to protect those industries, and those tariffs were cost increases on working people.

518. 4:58:15

     So the political era that produced the income tax, that created the income tax, had billionaire robber barons running away with their wealth, and it had tariffs that were increasing costs for the working class. Now, that sounds awfully familiar. So if y'all are saying stuff like, "Oh, you're gonna be in the minority for another 10 years. You don't have the pulse. People want their money back," when they invented the income tax and said, "Yes, we want to be taxed because we want the people on the top end of the income spectrum to pay their fair share," that all happened in circumstances politically that were identical to the circumstances we're going through now.

519. 4:58:54

     So it may be true that ever since Reagan, y'all have been riding your sports cars down the political main street with the windows down, talking about tax cuts is the answer to everything. That is not where the voters are, folks, 'cause the voters are too smart for this play. The voters know that even if we vote no on this and we don't do this particular type of income tax slashing, they know you can tax the people who are the top earners. They know that we have the tools to go make the wealthy pay their fair share.

520. 4:59:25

     But you know why the wealthy have not paid their fair share yet? There's a scene in It's a Wonderful Life, you'll be shocked that there's one more scene, where Mr. Potter tries to buy off George Bailey. He invites George Bailey into his office and he says, "George, I wanna put you in charge of my business. I'm gonna pay you $20,000 a year." Again, pretty on the nose, right? And he says, "You wouldn't mind going to the nicest restaurants in town, going to Europe for vacation every now and then?" And George Bailey thinks about it. He goes, "Would I?" He has to think about it because it would benefit, it would completely revolutionize his family's life if Mr.

521. 5:00:01

     Potter bought him off. But then he remembers that's not what the underdog would do. The underdog would fight for the community, would fight for that affordable housing that his family helped create, and he tells Mr. Potter, "No, I'm not gonna take that deal." If Georgians are listening to this, they need to know that they are being bought off and the price is very cheap. We're gonna throw you 100 bucks a month for a lot of y'all, and by throwing you 100 bucks a month, we hope that you ignore that your public schools, the environment, your roads, your healthcare, everything's gonna deteriorate, and in the meantime, the top 20% are getting 20,000 back a year.

522. 5:00:41

     So Georgians, the choice is yours. Do you wanna get paid off so that the rich who aren't paying their fair share get even more money back? Or do you wanna believe in a better world that takes a little bit of community and a little bit of teamwork to figure out? With that, Mr. President, I will yield for questions.

523. 5:01:05

     Senator from the 8th, what purpose do you rise? I have a question. All right. Thank you, Mr. President. Uh, does the gentleman yield? I do to my good friend. And you are my good friend. I have a quick question, though. You, you were saying that the tariffs, uh, of the 1930s were, and, and '20s were to protect American industries. Was that correct? I believe that that was the intention, but one side effect of tariffs, you might protect industry, but it's at a very significant cost, which is that ordinary folks paying for consumer goods, cost of everything goes up with tariffs.

524. 5:01:41

     Inputs go up, uh, you know, the, the cost, the ultimate cost the, the person pays at the cash register goes up. So, you know, protection means something specific. It means you protect something that already exists. One of the reasons the tariffs now are so senseless is because, you know, JD Vance and Donald Trump say, "Oh, well, we're gonna create new industries with these tariffs." That takes a really long time and it doesn't necessarily happen. So, so, you know, these tariffs have real costs and you don't always get the benefit of them. So does the gentleman further yield? I do. I just wanna ask, and do you ever, have you ever thought about if we had not have protected those industries, what we would have done during World War II when those industries became the arsenal for democracy?

525. 5:02:21

     I think, you know, I, I, I've never come out and said, "Oh, all tariffs are bad." Like, I'll give you a good example. Candlemakers, you know? I've talked to labor on the coast and, you know, candlemakers, uh, have some real capacity issues where we need to make sure that that industry, which is a fledgling industry and has, you know, certain vulnerabilities to the international market, has a little bit of help. Again, protecting industries that already exist. Um, and I think it matters to the context of the national environment. When you have tariffs in the context of a World War effort where the whole country comes together and works as one with one purpose, it does a lot more.

526. 5:02:54

     I mean, I, I've got an NRA poster in my office, not the NRA you're thinking of. National Recovery Act. And what was that? National Recovery Act was federal legislation that was designed during wartime to help everybody get on the same page about pitching in. We might go through a crunch, prices might be slightly higher for a second, but we're all in this together. That is not the tariffs that we're getting right now. The tariffs we're getting right now are because Donald Trump gets mad at a world leader. They have a bad meeting when they don't call him, "Yes, sir. No, sir, Mr. President," the right way, and then he goes and slaps some arbitrary number on them, and he's doing such a bad job of that the GOP in the Senate, we had several senators that just voted, the US Senate, to, to limit the tariffs he's put on Canada, one of our biggest trading partners.

527. 5:03:36

     So, you know, it's context, man. And, and during World War II, when we're all on the same page and we- we're one national culture, that's very different from the way that Trump is arbitrarily throwing around tariffs right now. Thank you, Senator. I'll just add that, uh, I think that this country has to make sure that we have the industrial capacity to produce the means and munitions to defend itself, and I just wanna say that. Thank you. Thanks, Senator. Any further?

528. 5:04:05

     Further questions, Senator. Uh, recognize senator from the 19th. Thank you, Mr. President. Senator, do you yield for a series of questions? I do yield for as many questions as you'd like. Thank you. Uh, first question, would you agree with me that Senate Bill 476 does eliminate the income tax on individuals making $50,000 or less? By the terms of it, that's what it does. No more questions. Okay. Does the senator yield for more questions or? Yeah, I'll yield for a couple more. You, uh, Chair recognize senator from the 2nd.

529. 5:04:38

     Thank you, Mr. President. Senator, do you yield? To my good friend from Savannah, I do. Senator, is it not true that individuals will not receive, uh, this $5,000 increase, uh, that's being purported in the chamber because this is not a zero-sum game? We already have a standard deduction of 24,000, so therefore, moving that standard deduction from 24,000 to 100,000 will be a net gain more realistic around $2,000 to $3,000. Is that not true? And that's in the best case scenario, Senator. I mean, we haven't even talked-- Some of us today have talked about seniors, the fact that they already get significant income tax relief. And so for those folks, there's not a whole lot of benefit from a bill like this.

530. 5:05:10

     What really happens is just whatever taxes flood the zone to replace these lost revenues, that's gonna be what you end up seeing later. Bigger sa- sales tax bill, potentially over 10% sales tax in some cases if we replace all these revenues. And again, don't let 20 years of keep chopping fool you, Georgia. 20 years of keep chopping is narrative cover for the fact that you're struggling and they want you to give up hope. They want you to believe that state government can't fill these holes, that state government can't make life better in all these ways. And what-- You know, I've heard so many complaints about state agencies not calling you back w- with enough time.

531. 5:05:42

     You know, they should be doing better customer service. What a trick that is to underfund a state agency and then say they're not working hard enough. Come on, Georgia's smarter than this. I mean, that's the thing that gets me is these politics of tax cuts, throwing you red meat, telling you that's how you solve affordability. That, that era is over.

532. 5:06:02

     Anything else? No further questions. Thanks. Chair recognizes the senator from the 37th to speak to the measure.

533. 5:06:26

     Mr. President, ladies and gentlemen of the Senate, um, I rise today as a member of this body to apologize to Georgians for the falsehoods that have been thrown around this chamber today. I'd rather rise on a, on a lighter note and talk about what the bill does, which I'll do shortly, but the falsehoods you've heard that this has anything to do with sales tax, this, all this, this litany about how this is gonna impact people as a regressive sales tax is pure falsehood. Falsehood.

534. 5:06:57

     In fact, you talk to members who said those things, they'd recognize that's not, that's not in this bill. Nothing in this bill has anything to do with, with sales taxes. That's falsehood. We heard falsehood about how this helps rich people and doesn't hurt lower income people. That's falsehood. The idea that this is some big support and big, um, prop up of big business, falsehood. And the idea that this so- somehow under-invests in our critical infrastructure, friends, we have the highest paid school teachers in the southeastern United States. We have the highest, uh, investment in infrastructure of any southeastern state, and we have record surpluses.

535. 5:07:32

     The argument earlier this session was that we didn't have, have money for this. We've got $14 billion of surplus because we've been wise in our dollars. What this bill does, and I'm speaking to the members of the Senate who understand what this bill does, but I'm also speaking to Georgians. This is a very simple thing. If Senate Bill 476 passes today and is signed by our governor, families who make less than $100,000 per year will pay no state income tax.

536. 5:08:03

     Say it again. If you're a family and your income is less than $100,000 per year, if this bill passes, you will no longer pay an income tax to the state of Georgia. That's what this bill does. It's a very simple bill. All this talk, we've been talking about this for hours and hours and hours, it does a simple thing. If you're a family and you make less than $100,000 a year, you will pay no state income tax. You make more than that, you'll pay 5% tax above that. But families making $100,000 per year or less will pay no state income tax.

537. 5:08:39

     That works, that's working families. That's factory workers making $21.75 an hour married to a lunchroom person in a, in a public school, married, making about 75 or $80,000 a year, you pay no state income tax if you support this proposition the Republican minority is putting forward. Secondly, this eliminates special hookups for big, powerful businesses. It eliminates the special tax credits and the hookups that yacht owners have.

538. 5:09:09

     It eliminates the special tax credit the data centers that come in from outside and provide services but have the dollars to pay their own way, they get. This eliminates $1.6 billion of special tax hookups to data centers. Friends, the General Assembly today, but unless we pass this bill, the General Assembly passes this bill, we will eliminate a tax hookup for data centers in which the, the taxpayers of Georgia finance and spend more dollars, divert more dollars than we're spending on middle school teachers across this state.

539. 5:09:51

     I already said that Georgia spends, has the highest paid teachers in the Southeast, but we're spending so much money in this one special corporate carve-out that, that in the passage of Senate Bill 476 will allow us to fund middle school teachers across the state with the dollars. Friends, these are big special interest hookups that this bill eliminates. The falsehood that this is somehow some special deal for, for, for greedy actors, powerful actors smoking cigars in dirty rooms, it's pure falsehood.

540. 5:10:25

     This bill eliminates income taxes on families making less than $100,000 per year by eliminating these corporate hookups like we've never seen before. This is something I'm very proud of. My constituents are sick that others seem more equal than they. This is a middle class tax cut. This is a working class tax cut. This is a tax cut for folks struggling at the bottom of the income spectrum, and that's what it does, nothing more, nothing less. I apologize to Georgians who've heard this litany of lies.

541. 5:10:59

     I don't like using that word in here. It's falsehoods. What this bill does, it does a very simple thing. It eliminates special hookups for connected industries and eliminates the income tax on Georgia families making less than $100,000 per year. That's what it does, and that's why I am proud to support Senate Bill 476. Thank you, Mr. President. Senator's yielded the well. Chair recognizes the senator from the 51st to speak to the measure.

542. 5:11:41

     Thank you, Mr. President. Colleagues, I know everybody wants to get on with business. This is our first bill of four, so we've got a little ways to go tonight. But, uh, I couldn't leave here today without coming up and talking to us. Um, you know, all year we've been here now, what, thirty days. Democrats and Republicans are both using keywords, buzzwords, affordability, affordability, taxes. How do we take care of working people? We thought we were working together until we start getting down to the time where we have to walk the walk and not just talk and talk.

543. 5:12:14

     Today, we're hearing a lot of talk from Democrats. The Republican Party has put together a measure that helps working class people, helps the affordability issue that didn't start this year. The affordability problem wasn't something that started January of last year when President Trump took office. No, it started back four years before that when Washington, D.C. dumped trillions of dollars into our economy. We all know economic policy. We know what it did. It drove inflation through the roof. Double-digit inflation, not only did it hurt the value of a dollar, but it also increased values of homes all across our state.

544. 5:12:51

     And we're here today to help make something better for Georgians in our state. I want to talk a little bit about what's going on in District Fifty-One, but I may use the district fif- fourteenth as a good comparison. I like my good friend from the fourteenth. I look forward to working with Mr. Potter over the next few months and debating him on issues, because I live in a small town called Dahlonega, and it's like the Wonderful Life movie, somewhat like what you compared it to earlier, Senator. But things in North Georgia, not the same as they are here in Atlanta.

545. 5:13:21

     If you look at the values of homes in North Georgia, in my district, which com- encom- encompo- encompass seven counties, Dawson, Lumpkin, White, Union, Fannin, Gilmer, and Pickens, they're not million-dollar mansions sitting in neighborhoods. No, they're working class farmers trying to make a living. They're not living off big pensions. They're not living off of corporate welfare. They're not living off of a lot of the things that the Democrats have talked about today. I've sat here for many, many years, and I've voted for many of these tax cuts and these tax credits, and I've watched Democrats oppose a lot of these tax credits and these tax breaks for wealthy corporations as well.

546. 5:13:58

     Today, somehow you're for all those tax credits and those, those corporate welfare give back- giveaway programs while the Republicans are trying to take those away and give it back to people who need it the most. But let's talk about my district, Senate District Fifty-One. There are seventy-eight thousand seven hundred and thirty-five homes in my Senate district. Over in the fourteenth district, there's eighty-six thousand homes. The per capita income of my Senate district is only thirty-nine thousand three hundred and seventy-four dollars.

547. 5:14:29

     Meanwhile, over in Senate District Fourteen, it's seventy-four thousand eight hundred and sixty-six. The median household income in Senate District Fifty-One is seventy-four thousand two hundred and fifteen dollars, while over in Senate District Fourteen, it's a hundred and nine thousand seven hundred and eight dollars. The median age in Senate District Fifty-One is forty-seven years, while the median age in Senate District Fourteen is thirty-seven years. The percent of people below poverty in my Senate district is thirteen percent, while over in the Senate District Fourteen is eight point six percent.

548. 5:15:07

     You see, senators, wealth is a big defin- defined word depending on where you live geographically. The people in my district can't afford some of the nice things that the people in the fourteenth have today. We can't afford to pay nannies to take care of their kids. We have to work every day. Our f- our families are going to work eight to five, sometimes ten and twelve hours a day, trying to take care of their kids, trying to make ends meet, while some of the folks in Senate District fif- Fourteen, they can afford to buy, hire a nanny to come and take care of their children for them.

549. 5:15:39

     In fact, some of the nannies that you guys are hiring in your home districts are paid more than the household incomes of my Senate district. This tax break is going to help these working families everywhere throughout our state. It's going to help the people in your district, Senator, from the fourteenth. It's going to help the senators' districts in the twenty-third, in the third, the fourth, all over the fifty-six Senate districts in our state. We're going to give every Georgian a tax break, not the wealthy, but every Georgian.

550. 5:16:09

     Eleven million people are going to have a positive impact from this bill. There are going to be a lot of decisions that'll have to be made over the next five years on which of these credits will be taken away and which will be extended. I'm sure the people out in the hallway are going to get paid a lot of money to come back down here year after year and fight to extend these tax credits. But that's the job that we're paid to come down here to do, is to make a decision on what's best for our state. Tax credits are good in some areas and not so good in others. We have a job to do today, and that is to give this money back to the taxpayers that put it here to begin with.

551. 5:16:44

     I want to give credit for Governor Kemp, who has led on these issues for the past three years. He's proposing another tax cut this year. I applaud his leadership for doing that for four years in a row. We've given back a billion dollars of our surplus every year for the past three years, and we'll do it again this year. But we need to do more. We need to give more of that surplus back to the voters and back to the taxpayers, and today is a good start to do that. Senator, I would encourage you to vote for this bill. Democrats and Republicans, whether you're from Savannah or whether you're from Bainbridge or Blue Ridge, it doesn't matter where you're from.

552. 5:17:20

     Vote for this bill. Give this money back to the taxpayers. We've already given tax credits and tax breaks to a lot of Georgians. Our seniors have already gotten the tax break. As you know, senior citizens do not pay taxes on the first sixty-five thousand dollars of income for a single filer and a hundred and thirty thousand dollars for a joint filer. Veterans got the same benefit last year when we gave them a sixty-five thousand dollar tax credit for their income from their duty in the, in the Armed Forces. Today, we have a chance to give every citizen a tax break.

553. 5:17:54

     I would encourage every one of you to think about who you represent, look at the demographics in your district, think about the people making less than fifty thousand dollars a year, and ask yourself this question: Could you live and feed your families and pay your bills today in your home if you only made $50,000 a year? I think the answer to that is no, you can't. And so put yourselves in their shoes, vote yes for this bill, and let's help the people of Georgia. I yield the well.

554. 5:18:24

     Senator's yielded the well. Does any other senator wish to speak for or against the measure? Chair hears none. Chair recognizes the senator from the 39th to present the minority report.

555. 5:18:50

     Thank you, Mr. President, and good afternoon, colleagues. I know we've had a long morning into afternoon talking about our first bill of the day. I wanna first start off by saying that you know that I have a long history of working across the aisle, and I do not oppose Republican policies as a knee-jerk reaction ever, and yet I am standing here today to oppose this bill. You may also notice that I am wearing a bit of green today, and that was intentional because I knew we'd be talking about money, taxpayer dollars.

556. 5:19:24

     And when we're talking about taxpayer dollars, fast talk isn't what we need. We need to slow down because it isn't monopoly money. It is real money, and it belongs to Georgians, and we are entrusted to use it wisely. So I rise today not simply to oppose a bill, but to depe- to defend something simple, and that is that good public policy should be guided by math. Because this bill does not just raise the standard deduction, it is also paired with talk of eventually eliminating the income tax altogether.

557. 5:20:02

     It also eliminates, in a single bill, the very tax credits that have continued to shape Georgia's economic competitiveness for decades and help to make us the number one state for business. Perhaps you've heard that before. It is our golden talking point. Now, I understand the appeal of simplicity. Raising the standard deduction sounds clean, it sounds fair, and it does sound like relief, and relief matters. But relief that isn't sustainable isn't relief.

558. 5:20:34

     It is a delayed invoice on Georgia families. And eliminating every major tax credit without a replacement frame f- framework is not reform. These are structural changes that make Georgia weaker, and they are being labeled as an affordability plan. So this is not a debate about whether we want affordability or not. We all do. Every single one of us hears from families who are struggling all across the state, and there's no doubt that we all feel it in our own homes, as the senator from the 13th said earlier.

559. 5:21:08

     Groceries cost more, rent costs more, childcare costs more, insurance costs more, healthcare costs more, and paychecks are not stretching the way they used to. So yes, affordability matters. But here's the problem with the bill. That affordability framing ignores a basic truth of state budgeting. Good public policy requires math, not messaging, not momentum, and certainly not magical thinking. And this bill ignores the math.

560. 5:21:40

     In fact, in committee, there was no fiscal analysis submitted, no answer to the question, what does the tax burden look like in other states who've done this versus where Georgia is today? No piece of paper that showed the most used tax credits in the state and their value. No opportunity for public testimony, just a lot of trust me. Even today, we've heard that word trust a lot. Let me start by acknowledging that raising the standard deduction sounds good, and of course it would appeal to everyday Georgians.

561. 5:22:13

     Who doesn't want their taxes lowered? For many families, any relief matters because costs are high and budgets are tight. There's not a single person in this room indifferent to that. But that relief must be carefully planned and intentional to reduce the burdens that all Georgians face, not just a few. And that's where this conversation takes a turn. The math is simple. If we collect less, we have less. That reduction in revenue does not change the fact that Georgia has constitutional obligations to keep a balanced budget.

562. 5:22:49

     We must pay teachers and keep classrooms open. We must maintain roads and bridges. We must fund public safety, public health, and mental health services. We must respond to disasters, support seniors, and keep communities functioning. Those responsibilities do not vanish because we lower the income tax rate. And looking at the fact that we rank 45th in healthcare and 39th in education, one could argue that we aren't hitting the marks and need to invest more in those things today.

563. 5:23:21

     And you know what? As much as people want their costs to go down, they also want good schools, safe communities, and reliable infrastructure. We were told that the increase in the standard deduction amounts to about $6 billion in lost revenue with $3 billion in tax cuts. That number has fluctuated. Again, we've had nothing put in front of us to really evaluate. But let's go with the $9 billion. As someone who knows how a business operates, let's think about how fast that money, uh, how fast a $9 billion hole consumes core services that keep rural communities and statewide commerce working.

564. 5:24:04

     $9 billion in the budget that we are looking at right now

565. 5:24:10

     Equals real line items. It's roughly the budget of the Department of Community Health, which in the amended budget is 5.65 billion. That's Medicaid, that's PeachCare, that's provider payments, that's healthcare for low-income families, seniors, and children across Georgia. Plus the Board of Regents and the University System of Georgia's budget at 4.03 billion that funds every public college and university in this state.

566. 5:24:40

     Together, that's about $9.68 billion, well over the lowball estimate of how much these cuts would remove from our state revenue. So in plain terms, a $9 billion hole is the budget equivalent of gutting healthcare for our most vulnerable and wiping out funding for Georgia's public universities. Or we could look at it another way. The Georgia Department of Transportation's budget is 5.12 billion. That includes money for the Local Road Assistance Program, money for the Rural Bridge Replacement, and money for SR 316 interchange conversions.

567. 5:25:19

     Add to that the State Road and Tollway Authority's I-75 Express Lanes project in Clayton and Henry Counties, a $1.796 billion needed investment in the region. And then add the Department of Agriculture, a piece of that, because that's $75 million, which supports food safety, consumer protection, and agricultural programs that keep our rural economy running. $9 billion is not spare change.

568. 5:25:50

     It is roads and bridges, it is rural access, it is commerce moving across our state. It is hospitals staying open, it is universities educating the next generation, and so much more. This bill creates a hole in the budget that would eat through our entire reserves long before you even get to 2031 when the tax credits expire and we hope business is still here to pay us in full.

569. 5:26:20

     When you cut a major dependable revenue source like the income tax, we do not have to guess how this ends. Other states already ran the experiment. Sales taxes went up, property taxes increased, funding for services were cut, or they relied on one-time reserves and optimistic projections hoping the next recession does not arrive. This isn't a theory. This is arithmetic, and it's exactly what has happened in other states.

570. 5:26:52

     Take Louisiana, for example. After major income and corporate tax cuts, lawmakers had to raise the statewide sales tax to fill the gap. The most famous cautionary tale is Kansas, where sweeping tax cuts created deep budget stress and painful consequences for public services. It's an example that analysts still warn other states not to repeat. Georgia should learn from those lessons, not repeat them. Revenue reductions do not vanish obligations.

571. 5:27:25

     They shift costs, and when revenue shifts, so does the burden. Sales taxes fall harder on families who spend most of what they earn. Property tax pressure shows up in rent and housing costs. So while some may see a smaller income tax line on paper, it won't feel cheaper at home. The bill goes down here, but you better believe it goes up somewhere else. Big permanent income tax cuts don't lower the price of milk or diapers.

572. 5:27:55

     They don't make re- rent cheaper. They don't pay for your childcare. They mostly benefit those at the very top while leaving everyday Georgians even more exposed to rising local taxes and reduced services, and none of those outcomes equal affordability. Relief that creates a hole today becomes pressure tomorrow, and pressure, it always lands somewhere, usually on the people who make the least. Now let's talk a little bit about the elimination of the tax credits.

573. 5:28:26

     We like to say we're the number one state to do business, but can we admit that Georgia did not just stumble into economic success? Georgia did not grow by accident. We didn't wake up one morning and discover that manufacturing, research, logistics, clean energy, innovators, and entrepreneurs had just decided to come here out of kindness or because our people look good. We competed. We built a strategy. Are, am I done? We created targeted tax credits, not as favors, but as tools to compete against other states, to attract investment, to drive job creation so Georgians can go to work.

574. 5:29:05

     Those credits were strategic, and they brought production to smaller and big cities, supported research and development, helped rural communiti- communities attract, attract industry, and encouraged redevelopment in the neighborhoods that needed them most. And make no mistake, they're signals. Signals to industry, investors, families. When we say Georgia offers this incentive, we are saying, "We want your business. We want your jobs. We want your innovation." So what message do we send them when we eliminate them?

575. 5:29:38

     Other states are already sharpening their incentives. States like Texas and North Carolina are eagerly awaiting passage of this bill more than anyone else. Today, we are being asked to erase that plan in one vote. And actually, let me just say that in a different way. The majority caucus has been in charge for well over 20 years, and all of a sudden now these credits are corporate welfare and have been bad for Georgia? These are your tax credits as much as they are ours.

576. 5:30:11

     You better stand by them or don't take credit for the success they've generated. You really want to run away from credits that have brought us jobs and millions and billions of dollars in investment in our cities and counties?

577. 5:30:27

     I'm gonna fast-forward 'cause I don't know if I'm actually... So Georgia did not become competitive overnight. You can't re-

578. 5:30:34

     Senator.

579. 5:30:34

     I'm gonna close it out.

580. 5:30:35

     Okay.

581. 5:30:36

     Um, you can't remove every tool at once without putting the state at risk. If reform is needed, let's reform precisely. Let's evaluate rigorously.

582. 5:30:49

     And I'm not defending every tax credit. We do need them. The Democratic caucus would love to work with you on a plan toward avo- affordability. There are many other things that we can do. The math deserves better, relief should be real, reform should be strategic, and taxpayer dollars deserve our discipline. This vote may pass, but history will re- record whether we exercise foresight or impatience. Thank you, Mr.

583. 5:31:19

     President. I'll yield for questions if there are any.

584. 5:31:23

     No questions, Senator.

585. 5:31:24

     Thank you.

586. 5:31:24

     Thank you. Recognize the senator from the 19th to close debate.

587. 5:31:39

     Thank you, Mr. President. Uh, thank you members of the Senate for your indulgence this afternoon on what is a very important vote for so many people who are watching out in the audience, and even those who aren't paying attention at all. I heard someone get up here and describe this as a middle class tax hike. Please tell me how. This bill eliminates the income tax on individuals making $50,000 or less. This bill eliminates the income tax on families making $100,000 and less.

588. 5:32:14

     This bill gives a $5,190 tax savings to families making over $100,000. If you think this is a middle class tax hike, please tell me where you draw the line for the middle class. This bill is tailored to affect and impact most those families making between 50 and $125,000. That's your firefighters, your teachers, your nurses, your law enforcement officers, the person at the retail counter when you go to pay for your lunch, the person who's working at the mall, the janitor in this hall who's picking up the trash, the door keepers who are keeping us safe in this facility, the folks who are standing here behind me making sure that all the bills we read are engrossed properly and appear correctly.

589. 5:33:04

     This bill's about them. And if you want to stand here and hide behind some facade or some movie from the '60s and somehow claim it's not, well, that's an incredible insult.

590. 5:33:23

     Sales tax. This is gonna raise a sales tax. I flipped through these 17 pages 15 times, I had time while y'all were talking about it, and looked for the sales in tax, sales tax increase, and you will be so shocked to know I could not find it. It did not exist. Perhaps like the big bill from Mr. Potter in It's a Wonderful Life, the angels appeared and it disappeared from our language, but it's no longer there because this bill did not raise sales tax at all.

591. 5:33:57

     All it did is eliminate the income tax on families making 50,000 or less, 100,000 or less, and individuals making 50,000 or less. Imagine a world where that existed. Gosh, in such a world, that would be a wonderful life, wouldn't it? A comment came up about a fiscal note. Guys, I have stood up here and presented to you the most costly bill in our state 11 times, our state budget. At no point in time when we were presenting that bill did any of you ask me for a fiscal note.

592. 5:34:35

     But here we stand now in a bill that we present and show you how we're paying for it, and all of a sudden it's a problem. I'll tell you why it's a problem. Because the mental gymnastics you have to jump through to vote against this bill are astounding. How you wiggle and twist and bend to say that cutting taxes for the middle class hurts them, that eliminating the income tax on families making less than $100,000 makes Georgia less competitive.

593. 5:35:07

     To talk about all these increased costs and then say, "But giving you your money back to pay for them hurts you." Wow, at the gymnastics involved to accept that conclusion.

594. 5:35:21

     Something was brought up that this eliminates the rural hospital tax credit, the veterans tax credit, the childcare tax credit. So I wanted to flip through the bill and find out where that happened, too. It turns out of the 29 tax credits that we eliminate, those are not ones of them. So where would this fallacy arise? Well, there is a little truth in it. As you know, the best lie has a little bit of truth in it. This bill puts a sunset on every single income tax credit in Georgia.

595. 5:35:53

     That income tax credit sunset hits in five years. It says for the, if you're war- earning one of those credits, that by 2032 you have to justify that credit to this body and the body across the hall in order for it to remain. Wow, what a novel concept. Accountability. It turns out that the federal government, they require the exact same thing. The federal government who just allowed billions to be wasted in Minnesota requires five-year sunsets, but somehow for us to do it is wrong?

596. 5:36:29

     Wow. The mental gymnastics involved to reach that point. I've told you already, this bill exempts the income tax on almost every teacher, our average teacher salary is 71,000, on almost every senior, on almost every first responder, and on almost everyone who's on a fixed income. This bill helps the middle class. But you don't have to take my word for it. Turns out if one of our fine clerks, who hopefully will see their income tax eliminated with this bill, would throw up what an independent source says.

597. 5:37:04

     Well, this is the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, not exactly known as the bastion for conservatism. But they laid out in their publication who the winners and the losers were in Senate Bill 476, and I just wanna turn around and read it for you. The winners, single people making $50,000 or less. The other winners, families making $100,000 and less.

598. 5:37:35

     The losers, big business, insurance companies, banks. The line is clear. Where do you stand? I stand with those families making less than $100,000, and a yes vote fully supports them. But if you vote no today and cast a red vote on the board, well, you stand with those and support those who are the losers here. The line's clear.

599. 5:38:06

     The die is cast. I know you will make the right decision regardless of your party. Let's stand with those Georgians who are doing the real work. Let's give them real relief. Let's put money in their pockets so they can pay for gas, groceries, and childcare. Let's do something for the people who aren't standing in the halls. Mr. President, thank you so much for the, your time, and I yield the floor.

600. 5:38:36

     The senator is yielded.

601. 5:38:41

     All right. So that was the author there, and that closes debate here.

602. 5:38:49

     That was, uh, only took about six hours. Is there objection to agreeing to the poor committee, which is favorable to the passage of the bill? Chair hears none. The floor of the committee is agreed to. Is there objection to the main question being ordered? Chair hears none. The main question is ordered. The question is on the passage of the bill. All those in favor of the bill will vote yay. All opposed nay. Secretary will unlock the machine.

603. 5:40:17

     On the passage of the bill, the yays are 32 and the nays are 18. And on the... This bill, having received a requisite constitutional majority, is therefore passed, and it would represent the largest tax cut in state history.

604. 5:40:43

     Secretary read House Bill 134.

605. 5:41:00

     House Bill 134 by Representatives Camp of the 135th and others. A bill to be entitled an act to amend Title 48 of the Official Code of Georgia Annotated relating to revenue and taxation so as to provide for definitions to revise and expand a sales tax exemption for manufactured homes, to provide for a sunset date, to provide for legislative findings, to provide for related matters, to provide for an effective date, to repeal conflicting laws, and for other purposes. Mr. President, the Senate Committee on Finance recommends that this bill do pass by substitute. Senator Hufstetler of the 52nd. Chairman.

606. 5:41:31

     Mr. President. Mr. President, the Senate Committee on Finance offers the following substitute to House Bill 134: A bill to be entitled an act to amend Title 33 and Title 48 of the Official Code of Georgia Annotated relating to insurance, and revenue and taxation respectively, so as to reduce the personal income tax rate, and for other purposes.

607. 5:41:48

     Minority report.

608. 5:41:50

     Mr. President, a minority report has been attached. Mr. President, that completes your order.

609. 5:41:57

     Recognize senator from the 19th.

610. 5:42:05

     Thanks. Thank you, Mr. President. Uh, Senate Bill 134. As you know, the House, uh, likes to say that tax cuts are also revenue bills, and that they therefore constitutionally must start in the House. We are adamant to reduce taxes for middle-class Georgians, and we're not gonna let that argument of whether or not a tax cut is a revenue bill be any part of this, uh, argument of whether or not Georgia's income tax should be reduced. So therefore, we stripped out, uh, Representative Camp's Senate- House Bill 134, and we inserted the Senate bill that you just passed, Senate Bill 476, on top of it.

611. 5:42:40

     We did talk to Representative Camp before we did so. And in... What I would ask you to do, if you are supportive of 476, please be supportive of House Bill 134. Again, it's just to make sure that we, one, doing olive branch to the House to make sure that they understand that we want to acknowledge that if this were a revenue bill and had to have a House number, that's perfectly fine. As President Reagan said long time ago, "There's, um, no limit to what you can get done if you don't care who gets the credit." Happy to answer any mis- any questions, Mr. President.

612. 5:43:10

     You have no questions, Senator.

613. 5:43:12

     Thank you.

614. 5:43:12

     Is there any other senator who wishes to speak for or against the measure? Senator from the 41st Order? A parliamentary inquiry. Thank you. According to our House rules, um, and according to our Senate rules, this bill was engrossed, and so we just wanna raise our objection about the engrossment of it being changed in committee. We're raising that for the record and ask for your ruling on it. That's, that's fine. But, um, and the ruling, you know, the ruling is similar to the first one, 'cause we, uh, have a, um, long-standing tradition here that while the House bills can be changed in committee, once they're on the floor, en- engrossed in, on the floor, then, uh, we're not gonna change them, so.

615. 5:44:01

     Would

616. 5:44:07

     you... I didn't think y'all would appreciate that, but...

617. 5:44:12

     Um, does anybody wish to speak for or against the measure? All right. Does any senator... Is there objection to the previous question being ordered? Chair hears none. Previous question is ordered. Question's on the adoption of the committee substitute. Is there objection to the adoption of the committee substitute? Hearing none, the committee substitute is adopted. Is there objection to agreeing to the report of the committee, which is favorable to the passage of the bill? Chair hears none. Report of the committee is agreed to. Is there objection to the main question being ordered?

618. 5:44:44

     Chair hears none. Main question is ordered. Question is on the passage of the bill by substitute. All those in favor of the bill, vote yay. All opposed, nay. Secretary, unlock the machine.

619. 5:45:24

     Senator from the 19th, what purpose do you rise? Mr. President, parliamentary inquiry. State your inquiry. Mr. President, is it not true that if somebody voted no on the last bill, they still could save themselves with their district by voting yes on this bill? Senator's passionate.

620. 5:45:40

     Everybody always has an opportunity to make a right decision.

621. 5:46:06

     On the passage of the bill, the yeas are 31, the nays are 17. This bill, having received the requisite constitutional majority, is therefore passed by substitute. Secretary Read, Senate Bill 477.

622. 5:46:24

     Senate Bill 477 by Senator Tillery of the 19th and others. A bill to be entitled an act to amend Article 2 of Chapter 7 of Title 48 of the Official Code of Georgia Annotated relating to the imposition, rate, computation, exemption, and credits relative to income tax so as to reduce the personal income tax rate, to revise provisions relative to annual reductions of the income tax, to reduce the rates of taxation on corporate and partnership income, to increase the amount of the standard deduction from state taxable income for individuals, to provide for related matters, to provide for an effective date and applicability, to repeal conflicting laws, and for other purposes.

623. 5:46:55

     Mr. President, the Senate Committee on Finance recommends that this bill do pass. Respectfully submitted, Senator Huffstetler of the 52nd, Chairman. Mr. President, that completes your order.

624. 5:47:08

     Recognize the senator from the 19th. Thank you, Mr. President. I present to you now Senate Bill 477. Se- Senate Bill 477 again reduces Georgia's income tax but does it in a different way. This bill is not tailored to help the middle class. It is not my preferred bill, but it is a bill that provides middle class relief across the board. Let's talk about how it does that. It drops the state's income tax rate from where we stand right now at 5.19% down to 4.99, and then it uses revenue triggers that if state revenue exceeds the last year's revenue by more than 1%, the income tax rate will then tick down half a percentage point, 50 basis points, each year until it arrives at 3.99% in 2028.

625. 5:48:00

     As I told you already, I don't think this is tailored to the middle class, but it does provide relief for Georgians. And the reason that we're presenting this bill as well is because we cannot be sure that our friends across the hall are as focused on affordability for the middle class as we are. So while that is my preference, I cannot allow perfect to be the enemy of good. We need to give options so that we, when we leave this session at the end of the year, that we've provided relief to Georgians from the monies that we've been able to take in the past.

626. 5:48:31

     So I'd ask for your favorable consideration. We will still continue to champion Senate Bill 476, but if we are not able to convince our friends across the hall of its merits and how it does, helps families as well, we need to allow, not allow perfect to be the enemy of good as we pass this thing in the end. Happy to take any questions. You have no questions, Senator. Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the well and ask for your favorable consideration of Senate Bill 477. Recognize the senator from the 44th.

627. 5:49:16

     Thank you, Mr. President. We could pass this bill, pass the last one, the results are still the same

628. 5:49:24

     We may as well just pass a bill to send the rich to Sea Island a few more times a year on taxpayer money. Our Republican colleagues have kept saying that eliminating the state income tax, lowering it to this massive degree, won't raise sales taxes. That sounds really nice, but it is complete magical thinking. And for the families that are struggling to pay rent, childcare, utility bills, buy their groceries, it's worse than a slap in the face.

629. 5:49:56

     It is a flat-out scam. You cannot blow a hole in our state budget bigger than a sinkhole swallowing Stone Mountain and pretend that the money doesn't have to come from somewhere.

630. 5:50:12

     Income tax funds half our state budget. That pays for schools, public safety, healthcare, infrastructure, the basics that even make us a state. And if you wipe that out, if you take it down to this degree, you do what the study committee said we should, eliminate it altogether, and I think everyone's still saying, my Republican colleagues are still saying, "We'll, we'll, we'll eliminate it in six years," you either slash services dramatically, and by dramatically I mean, like, closing our public universities, or you gotta replace the revenue.

631. 5:50:48

     There is no third option. And for those of you who are being... and I think it's probably play acting, those of you who are being willfully obtuse saying, "Oh, I read the bill and there's nothing in there about sales taxes," you don't have to take it from me. As our state economist, Bob Bushman, put it, eliminating Georgia's income tax is, and I quote, "An unrealistic talking point spouted by unserious people." He warned that because the income tax makes up half of state revenue, you have to replace almost all of it to avoid fiscal disaster.

632. 5:51:37

     And how do you replace it? Well, as our state economist, Bushman, spelled out, the only realistic alternative, and those are his words, the only realistic alternative to income tax is a sales tax, which is why that's what they have in Florida and that's what they have in Tennessee and these vaunted states that we apparently want to, um, emulate. And when it's sales tax instead of income tax, that means the rich pay less, the middle class pay more.

633. 5:52:15

     And that's not rhetoric, it's basic math. And let me ask you, if everything we just heard during the last bill is correct, and that means Bob Bushman is totally wrong. And let me ask you, if he is so clueless about economics, why was he hired as our state economist? Some of you may need to go have a talk with him, 'cause apparently you know a lot more about how the economy works and revenue works than he does.

634. 5:52:52

     A sales tax hits hardest those who spend most of what they earn just to live: middle class families, working families, seniors on fixed incomes. So let me just break it down a little more in real numbers for those Republicans who say, "This is a lie, don't understand the economy," or here's another possibility, and I'd wager that this one is actually closer to the truth for many of you, are just kinda soldiering on with the Republican talking points even though you know that these bills are pie in the sky nonsense.

635. 5:53:32

     Here are the numbers. If you make $60,000 a year, nearly every dollar, perhaps every dollar, will go to rent, mortgage, groceries, gas, school clothes, prescriptions. You pay sales tax again and again and again. If you make $6 million, on the other hand, most of your income will end up invested, stocks, real estate, venture capital, not spent at the grocery store and not taxed.

636. 5:54:12

     So this will not be a tax cut, it will be a tax shift.

637. 5:54:19

     Look, for 23 years, Republicans have controlled Georgia. During that time, corporations and billionaires have had undue influence over our state's agenda. Some of you are acknowledging that suddenly. Economic growth has happened, but working families have been squeezed. Per capita income has fallen. People in Georgia have less money on a per capita basis now than they did when Republicans took over state government.

638. 5:54:59

     Businesses, though, have received handouts. Listen to this. Since 2019, hourly wages have barely budged. Corporate profits have doubled. Doubled. And who depends on wages? The working class. It's the wealthy that can grow their wealth through the stock market...

639. 5:55:31

     which is a metric of corporate profits.

640. 5:55:38

     This is why when you compare the family making six million and the family making 60,000, this is why an income tax is the fairest way to pay for all of the services that we all rely on, all of us. Taxpayers of Georgia, please do not fall for the line that income tax is theft unless you plan to build your own highways and patrol them too.

641. 5:56:15

     Perhaps some of my Republican friends also are a little bit blind to history. Maybe you don't know that we have the most massive concentration of wealth among the fewest people in the entire history of our country, higher than the Gilded Age, when decades of unrest, crises, and organizing forced changes, which, to my friend the senator from the 27th, was when the United States instituted an income tax.

642. 5:56:51

     That's why there's an income tax, and that's also why this debate cuts to the core of philosophical differences between Democrats and Republicans. Democrats think that those who can make millions without lifting a finger because they've got millions in the stock market kicking off capital gains should pay their fair share,

643. 5:57:18

     just like our country decided at the turn of the century. How readily these lessons of history, the unrest and the bloodshed that those eras caused, are cast aside. So when Republicans are saying, "Let's ditch the income tax," what they're really saying, what I hear, is we want all the spoils of our economy to go to the Epstein class. And that, my friends, is the opposite of what you would do if you were actually serious about an affordability agenda for the middle class.

644. 5:57:56

     However, it is, it is, I must acknowledge, right in line with what Republicans in Washington are up to. Did you know that President Trump and his family have brazenly pocketed a billion and a half dollars personally in the last year using the power of the presidency to extract money from people, businesses, and countries alike? He said he wanted to take care of the average American, and a lot of people believed him.

645. 5:58:28

     He said a lot of the right things. He was willing to take on some orthodoxies from each party. People had hope, but he has stabbed them in the back while lining his own pockets.

646. 5:58:45

     His presidency is one big grift, and right now, just one of the backstabbing things, hundreds of thousands are getting kicked off healthcare and our rural c- hospitals are on the conveyor belt to closing. That's what the big, beautiful bill will do. But, you know, the grift doesn't really surprise me because it's typical of the Epstein class, and Trump has always been a member of the Epstein class.

647. 5:59:22

     That is why his name shows up 38,000 times in the Epstein files.

648. 5:59:33

     Look, I don't think all of you Senate Republicans actually believe this is a good idea, so please do not let me offend you with what I'm saying when I just say Senate Republicans writ large. Senate Republicans suddenly discovered affordability when they realized in the last six months that voters cared more about the price of groceries than about the culture war distractions that ha- that you've been peddling for years.

649. 6:00:05

     But he, see, here's the problem. If this stuff is the affordability agenda, it's a joke, just like apparently our Senate rules are.

650. 6:00:17

     The rules apparently apply to other people, not to you guys, which also is very typical of the Epstein class.

651. 6:00:31

     These tax bills, like Bob Bushman said, are election year talking points. There's no fiscal note, there's no numbers, and, you know, I believe in some of the expertise that led, uh, our, our governor to hire our state's top economist.

652. 6:00:54

     Not having a fiscal note, rushing it through the process, disregarding Senate rules along the way, that's not fiscal conservatism, and if it's really true that these would actually give most Georgians a payday, I believe y'all would be tripping over yourselves to show us the numbers. Instead, we're just hiding them. Ain't that telling?

653. 6:01:17

     I got another history lesson for you,

654. 6:01:21

     and this one I've witnessed personally. It's Democrats who have been fighting for middle class families in this chamber for the past 15, 20 years. We've pushed to raise the minimum wage. We've fought to expand Medicaid so hundreds of thousands of Georgians could access healthcare. Instead, the Republican plan has spent $110 million, and 70% of all that has gone to jobs for paper pushers who make sure it's near impossible for folks to qualify.

655. 6:01:59

     That's Pathways for you. We have worked with a few good men in here, too, who are Republicans to reign in skyrocketing power bills. But l- let's be honest, it is on Republicans that folks' utility bills have gone up six times in the last two years.

656. 6:02:20

     Republicans oversaw making Georgians pay the fifth highest electric bills in the nation and the highest gas bills in the nation. That's why two of them just lost in a landslide.

657. 6:02:36

     We've proposed a state work credit for years, and earned a state level earned income tax credit to put money directly back into the pockets of working families. 31 states have that. Never took action on that bill. I've been author of it for years. We've proposed the state replace ACA subsidies that the Republicans in Washington killed, ripping healthcare away from hundreds of thousands of Georgians. We filed a refundable childcare tax credit.

658. 6:03:09

     We fought for funding for caps for years. So please spare us the fake populism about how these bills help people with expensive childcare and power bills. The only reason childcare and power bills are what they are in Georgia is because the Republicans chose to make them that way. Where have you been the last 15 years? We've supported literacy initiatives, affordable housing investments, needs-based higher education, p- and, and even portable benefits so the gig workers in our economy can access health and retirement security.

659. 6:03:51

     Now, that's an affordability agenda, and that even th- that ain't even the extent of it.

660. 6:04:00

     That's an affordability agenda, not a tax scheme that benefits the wealthier among us and sends the bill to everyone else.

661. 6:04:10

     I do believe that Georgia families are too smart for that.

662. 6:04:19

     So this proposal isn't about affordability. It's about ideology and political ambition. It's about delivering a headline without telling you what happens next.

663. 6:04:33

     When politicians promise you something for nothing, it's usually you who will end up paying.

664. 6:04:42

     This state deserves serious leadership, serious budgeting, and serious solutions, not a fairy tale. Republicans here with these proposals are the wolf in sheep's clothing. "Come here, pretty little thing. Trust me. Trust me, I'm one of you," before devouring the very people they claim to help. So let's not fall for this, Georgia.

665. 6:05:14

     Vote down this fairy tale. Vote down this tax scam.

666. 6:05:21

     And let's move on with some bills that really help the working class. Thank you, Mr. President. I'm happy to answer any questions or I yield the floor.

667. 6:05:32

     You do have one question, Senator.

668. 6:05:33

     All right then. I yield the floor. Thank you.

669. 6:05:36

     I said you do have one question, Senator.

670. 6:05:39

     I thought you said, "You do not have any questions."

671. 6:05:41

     Recognize the senator from the 19th.

672. 6:05:43

     Thank you, Mr. President. Senator, do you yield?

673. 6:05:45

     S- of course.

674. 6:05:46

     I appreciate your passionate comments. You mentioned about a divide between the middle class and the wealthy. I'm just wondering, where do you draw that line? What's the difference between when someone's in middle class and when they're in the wealthy? I think you referred to them as the Epstein class.

675. 6:06:02

     Well, the Epstein class is obviously the, the very wealthy. Um, so I mean, the important point there is really that the less you make, the more a, a, a non-income tax source of revenue falls on you. So basically, it's like pushing the tax burden downward. So for, so if I make 140K, and I still have to spend a, a much higher percentage of my income on basic necessities in day-to-day life than someone who makes 300,000 or 500,000.

676. 6:06:39

     So in that sense, a non-progressive income tax based solution means that I still pay more, so really that's the crux of the debate.

677. 6:06:48

     Will the senator further yield?

678. 6:06:49

     Sure.

679. 6:06:50

     So is there a dollar value that you think is the break line between middle class and the wealthy?

680. 6:06:56

     I really think the very important point is the less you make, the more you will spend in taxes.

681. 6:07:00

     Will the senator further yield?

682. 6:07:02

     Sure.

683. 6:07:02

     Because I, am I correct to believe you would support a tax cut for the middle class? Would that be fair?

684. 6:07:09

     Well, I would support, um, you know, for example, I've been the author all these years of the Work Credit Bill. I would support a higher standard deduction. Um, yeah.

685. 6:07:19

     Senator-

686. 6:07:19

     I, I do believe, yes, I believe and, and, and that is where some of these, um, credits- That we are discussing do, are, uh, should be examined. But you can't do the pie in the sky things in these bills and-

687. 6:07:33

     Will the senator-

688. 6:07:33

     ... and expect to make up for them that way. They're just a much, they're a much smaller percentage of our revenue than, or our revenue expenditure than, than these, than the taxes are.

689. 6:07:42

     Will the senator further yield?

690. 6:07:43

     Sure.

691. 6:07:43

     You just said you would support an higher standard deduction. The bill that just came before you raised the standard deduction from $24,000 to $100,000 for a working family, quadrupling it, yet you voted against it. I just wanna-

692. 6:07:55

     Because as Bob Bushman explained, you cannot eliminate all that revenue without something to make it up or otherwise you court fiscal disaster. And the only alternative is the sales tax.

693. 6:08:05

     Okay.

694. 6:08:05

     Unless we're gonna institute a state property tax. And income tax, people who make more pay more. The sales tax, people who make less pay more.

695. 6:08:15

     Will the senator yield for one final question? If you can give-

696. 6:08:17

     Absolutely.

697. 6:08:17

     If you can give me a-

698. 6:08:18

     To my friend, the Appropriations Chairman.

699. 6:08:19

     If you can give me a dollar amount on this one, I will not ask you again. What is the break line between the middle class and the wealthy class that you mentioned earlier? What dollar value?

700. 6:08:29

     I mean, you know, it depends on where you live. Like, it, yeah, there's a lot of things. And that's, and that's the kind of not, who cares? The point is the less you make, the more you pay.

701. 6:08:37

     Then, will senator yield again?

702. 6:08:39

     Yes.

703. 6:08:40

     You can pick where. If you pick DeKalb County or pick Atlanta or pick South Georgia, I'm just wondering what you think the middle class break dollar is-

704. 6:08:48

     Well, there was a-

705. 6:08:48

     ... for whichever place you pick.

706. 6:08:49

     There was a op-ed I think in the Wall Street Journal recently that suggested that 140K these years was the, basically the poverty line.

707. 6:08:56

     So you would say that-

708. 6:08:57

     I'm not saying that. I'm just letting you know.

709. 6:09:03

     Okay. Thank you for your time.

710. 6:09:04

     Thank you, Mr. Appropriations Chair. I appreciated your passionate closing speech on the last bill. I yield the floor.

711. 6:09:12

     All right. Senator from the 19th, would you like to close?

712. 6:09:26

     Excuse me, senator from the 2nd.

713. 6:09:39

     Thank you, Mr. President. To talk about SB 477, I wanna lift a couple key points, and I thought I would just tell the folks back in the 2nd and up and down I-16, a road that I travel every week, uh, many of my other colleagues travel that same road. Y'all heard us talk about this fiscal note business and what a fiscal note is. An average Georgian probably doesn't have a clue about a fiscal note.

714. 6:10:12

     So I wanna tell them what a fiscal note actually happens to be. In the Georgia General Assembly, a fiscal note is a document that explains how a proposed bill, proposed piece of legislation will affect public money. Uh, it serves as a financial check and balance on the legislation. It asks a couple key questions. Will the bill cost the state money? Will it save money? Will it have no budget impact?

715. 6:10:42

     And if there is a cost, how much and over what time period? And this helps us understand the financial implications of what a bill may or may not do coming from the state auditor, so that we, as members of the General Assembly, can make a vote that's well-informed. And unfortunately, I, I like many of you, are being asked to vote on these pieces of legislation based on trust me, but go with me.

716. 6:11:13

     And to have some significant pieces of tax legislation ought to have a fiscal note, ought to know what the financial impact is. And then I thought about it, I said, "Well, if if, if ifs and buts were candy and nuts, it'd be Christmas every day. So why not have the fiscal note?" So you can say, "Well, they didn't give me that document," or, "I didn't know that." And so I remember a good friend of mine who's a judge who told me, he said, "Well, ignorance of the law is no excuse." And so today, I don't want you to be ignorant, colleagues.

717. 6:11:48

     You don't have a fiscal note. You don't know what it will or will not do. You're only going off of what folks can give you in hypotheses and hyperboles, but you actually don't know. 'Cause when the auditor gives us that fiscal note, he certifies it, stamps it, puts his signature on it, and tells you, "This is the estimated impact of this bill on state government." And to make some big changes in state government, I think we should have had some fiscal notes so that we could know. And if I was wrong on my speeches, then I'll take my licks and keep on ticking.

718. 6:12:20

     But I can't tell you what the impact's gonna be, 'cause guess what I don't have? That little yellow sheet of paper that's a fiscal note. And I flipped that book forwards and backwards, backwards and forwards, and I thought, "Well, maybe I'm just overlooking it." And I flipped those pieces of paper inside one way, the other side another way, and guess what? And magically, it did not appear. There's still no fiscal note. So we really don't know what the impact is, so we're voting on something that can change folks' lives, and we haven't even done the due diligence. Now, I'm a journeyman carpenter.

719. 6:12:51

     My granddaddy was a carpenter. We got a saying that says, "Measure twice, cut once." I don't have a fiscal note, so I wanna know how can you measure this. And if you're measuring, what are you measuring? Because when I looked at the numbers, if you lower the flat personal income tax rate 5.99 to 3.99, it costs about $4.1 billion, with a B. And of that 4.1 billion in the total cost, about 69%, 2.8 billion, will go to the top 20%. So the top 20% gonna come out the best.

720. 6:13:23

     Well, when I said, "Well, let me just use my public school education from Jenkins High School and do some mathematics real quick." If you're at the bottom 20% and you're about $30,000 or below, that means you're gonna get about $40 in this bill. If you're about 30,000, maybe about- $52,000 or less, then you get about $203. Then if you're about $87,000 or below to about 52,000, you get $384. Then I said, all right, well now we getting good. Now, if you make about $159,000 to about $87,000, then you get about $728.

721. 6:13:58

     The math is getting good. It's about to get real good now. Now, if you're about 363,000 to about 160,000, now you're starting to see a little money. 1,000, about $559 for you. But now it gets even better. If you're about $943,000 to about $363,000, you start to see about $4,000. But this is where it get real good. If you're about from $943,000 to about 2.4 million, you gonna get $20,000. So tell me on basic math, uh, if I got $40 over here and you got 20,000 over here, the scale is leaning your way.

722. 6:14:35

     That means it's a little heavier. Now, I could take my little $40, and I got $40 in my pocket, two crisp $20 bills, boom, that's what I got. If I'm at the lowest tier, this tax cut, but if I'm at the top 1%, oh, I'm gonna make it rain. I got dollar dollar bills with $20,000. I could take $20,000 and do a lot with it. But where's my little $40 gonna stretch? Ain't going far. It might get a couple of hamburgers, couple Happy Meals, but that's about it. Them $40 ain't gonna go very far. But that's what happens when you try to weave what a tangle where we weave when we seek to deceive.

723. 6:15:09

     You wanna sell folks that I'm gonna cut taxes and folks wanna experience some relief, and they'll say, "You know what? That's a great idea," until they find out how much they gonna get. And when you tell them how much they gonna get, and they see you handing out 20,000 and they only got 40, they gonna say, "Hey, wait a minute. Wait, wait, hey, hey, where's the rest of my money?" And you gonna tell them, "Oh, there's no money for you." And so guess what? That's what we're gonna have to do, colleagues, is tell folks the truth about how these tax bills are gonna work. Now, if they were so serious about it, we'd have a fiscal note.

724. 6:15:40

     I could take that yellow sheet of paper, look at the analysis on it. Sometimes they go from one page to three pages. On a bill like this, might be five to seven pages. But guess what? We don't have that fiscal note. So if we were serious about it, we would have a fiscal note to tell us exactly what the impacts would be, and we could say that the state auditor sent us this note, but I can't go back and tell folks that my colleagues decided to vote on a tax cut, and I don't know how it may work or not work for you, but the way I look at it, I don't see it working well in your favor. You know why? Because when I tell them the top 1% gonna see $20,000 and these folks that work hard every day gonna tell me, "So how does that help me pay for childcare?

725. 6:16:18

     How does that help me afford pharmacy costs? How does that help me afford Pampers and milk? How does that help me afford gas? How does that help me pay the utilities?" 'Cause everybody gotta get paid, but only some folks gonna have enough money to make sure everybody get paid. The rest of us gonna be doing what? Robbing Peter to pay Paul, hope John don't ask for his money back. And then you gonna say, "But guess what? Uh, we cut taxes." It sounds good in theory, but you know, uh, last year I said it this way. I said it too. I said we had tort reform.

726. 6:16:49

     I said, "Look, tort reform without insurance reform is dead." And you said, "No, no, the insurance companies, they all right." Well, in the previous bill, you decided we had a tax credit, we could have cut on the insurance companies. Well, we coulda did that last year. We coulda saved folks some money if we were serious about it. That coulda been last year if we wanted to give folks relief. Now it just be mighty convenient to come up with all these magical things. Now we serious about it. Uh, the former majority leader to the senator from the 51st said, "You know what? Democrats voted against those tax credits," and now you voting in favor of them. Wait a minute. You mean to tell me the Democrats were right the whole time?

727. 6:17:20

     Y'all should listen to the minority party because clearly we telling you that if you just listen to what we say, we know exactly where folks are. You admitted that we were right, and now you wanna say, "Well, the welfare train for corporations was good, but we wanna stop the train." No, you're not stopping the train. You just gonna change out the locomotive on how you gonna get the welfare to them. And so guess what, colleagues? You vote for this if you want to. Maybe you don't know the folks that work in the smaller industries. You don't know the teachers, the daycare workers, the paraprofessionals. You might not know the EMTs.

728. 6:17:51

     You may not know the trash man or woman in your city, the street paver. But I know all of these folks, and I'm gonna tell you right now, these folks want us to do something about the cost of rent. They want us to do something about the cost of healthcare, and they want us to do something about the cost of childcare. And I have always said, and I said it last year when it came to cut taxes again, if we were serious about it, we had a billion dollar surplus. And the senator from the 46 said, "Well, now that we passed this, we can use that surplus." I've been saying that for the last two years standing right here in this well. I've been saying we could use that surplus.

729. 6:18:23

     Well, now it's magical use. Don't have fiscal note, say, "Oh, now we can use that fiscal note. We, we absolutely can use these surplus. We got rainy day fund." Well, we got the money to actually make folks' lives a whole lot better if we really wanted to. We could be serious about it, but this right here is just how you play politics, and I'm not gonna play the game of sorry with folks' lives, give them one step forward to take three steps backwards, because folks don't want us to, to come up here and pontificate on how we gonna give them more money.

730. 6:18:53

     Folks want us to raise the minimum wage and let them manage their own money, and then you don't have to worry about cutting taxes 'cause folks will say, "I got enough money to make it happen on my own." We don't wanna talk about giving folks some childcare subsidies to make sure that they can afford childcare and do the right things, but guess what? If we really wanted to do something about the cost of childcare, I got a bill right now. It's a constitutional amendment, and it would establish a childcare trust fund in the state. Uh, a, a lot of other states have done it. Louisiana's done it. Why do we always have to be dead last when it comes to doing the right thing?

731. 6:19:25

     Doing the right thing don't cost you nothing if you just have a backbone to do the right thing, and I got a backbone to do the right thing, 'cause one thing about the senator from the 2nd, I tell it like it is, and I don't put you in the hip pocket, and if it don't look right, it don't smell right, guess what? It ain't right. But if it walk like a duck, it quack like a duck, then guess what? It's probably a duck. And with that, Mr. President, I'm gonna, I'm gonna yield and take, uh- I'm a, I'm a yield the well. I'm a yield the well.

732. 6:19:50

     You don't wanna take the question right here?

733. 6:19:52

     No.

734. 6:19:52

     He really wants to gi- he really wants to give you a question now.

735. 6:19:56

     He can do it.

736. 6:20:05

     Uh, all right. You wanna close there?

737. 6:20:15

     He's good.

738. 6:20:15

     Thank you, Mr. President, and, uh, senator from the 2nd, I, I'm impressed. And the reason I'm doing a closing is because I couldn't ask you a question and the rules didn't allow it. But your presentation was amazing. You walked through how much this bill was gonna cost individuals. You walked how, through how much bills this was gonna cost the state. You walked through how much this would cost us for decades, and I am so impressed that you did all that without the presence of a fiscal note. Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the well.

739. 6:20:48

     Is there objection agreeing to the report of the committee, which is favorable to the passage of the bill? Chair hears none. The report of the committee is agreed to. Is there objections to the main question being ordered? Chair hears none. The main question is ordered. The question is on the passage of the bill. All those in favor of the vi- of the bill will vote yay. All opposed, nay. Secretary, unlock the machine.

740. 6:21:19

     Senator from the 2nd, what purpose do you rise?

741. 6:21:22

     Parliamentary inquiry, Mr. President.

742. 6:21:23

     State your inquiry.

743. 6:21:24

     Mr. President, is it not true that since I gave my public school mathematics, by the math my colleague should vote no on this legislation?

744. 6:21:35

     Well, Senator, every senator gets that opportunity to choose how they would like to vote.

745. 6:22:09

     On the passage of the bill, the yays are 31, the nays are 14. This bill, having received re- constitutional majority, is therefore passed.

746. 6:22:25

     Secretary, read House Bill 463.

747. 6:22:35

     House Bill 463 by Representative Blackmon of the 146th and others. A bill to be entitled an act to amend Part 1 of Article 2 of Chapter 5 of Title 48 of the Official Code of Georgia Annotated relating to tax exemptions so as to provide for a statewide homestead exemption from ad valorem taxes for certain senior citizens who volunteer with local governments in amount to be determined by such local governments, to provide for definitions, to specify the terms and conditions of the exemption and procedures relating thereto and for other purposes. Mr. President, the com- m- the, the committee of the Senate on Finance recommend that this bill do pass by substitute.

748. 6:23:06

     Senator Hufstetler of the 52nd, chairman.

749. 6:23:10

     Mr. President, the Senate Committee on Finance offers the following substitute to House Bill 463, a bill to be entitled an act to amend Article 2 of Chapter 7 of Title 48 of the Official Code of Georgia Annotated relating to the imposition, rate, computation, exemptions, and credits relative to income taxes so as to reduce the personal income tax rate, to revise provisions relative to annual reductions of the income tax, to reduce the rates of taxation on corporate and partnership income, to increase the amount of the standard deduction from the state taxable income for individuals, to provide for related matters, to provide for an effective date and applicability, to repeal conflicting laws, and for other purposes.

750. 6:23:42

     Mr. President, a minority report has been attached. Mr. President, that completes the order.

751. 6:23:46

     Recognize senator from the 19th.

752. 6:23:54

     Thank you, Mr. President. House Bill 463 simply takes Senate Bill 477 and inserts it into a House bill. As I explained to you before, the House has taken a position before that tax cuts are, also would be considered as revenue bills and therefore would need to start in the House. Uh, we do not take that position, but because we believe middle class affordability is so important, we are gonna take our bill, put it on a House bill, send it back across the chamber so that that does not remain as an issue to providing relief for Georgia families, uh, in this, uh, calendar year.

753. 6:24:26

     Happy to take any questions. Happy to yield the well.

754. 6:24:27

     You do have one question, senator.

755. 6:24:28

     Thank you, Mr. President.

756. 6:24:29

     Recognize senator from-

757. 6:24:30

     I got, I got one.

758. 6:24:30

     You do have one question.

759. 6:24:32

     Okay.

760. 6:24:33

     Senator from the 14th.

761. 6:24:34

     Thank you, Mr. President. Senator yield?

762. 6:24:36

     Of course.

763. 6:24:37

     Senator, do you know if the senators from the 51st or 27th have any tax bills, or are they all yours?

764. 6:24:43

     Um, I'm sure they're focused on affordability as well, but as you mentioned before, looks like I'm, uh, dominating the topic.

765. 6:24:50

     Fair enough. All right. Thanks, Senator.

766. 6:24:55

     Any further questions?

767. 6:24:55

     You have no questions, Senator.

768. 6:24:58

     I yield the well.

769. 6:25:06

     Was that a campaign joke right there? Was that a campaign with the ... I didn't catch that.

770. 6:25:14

     It's been a long day, hasn't it, Senator? All right. Does any senator wish to speak for or against the measure? Chair hears none. Is there objection to the previous question be it ordered? Chair hears none. Previous question is ordered. Question is on the adoption of the committee substitute. Is there objection to the adoption of the committee substitute? Hearing none, the committee substitute is adopted. Is there objection to agreeing to the report of the committee, which is favorable to the passage of the bill? Chair hears none. The report of the committee is agreed to. Is there objections to the main question being ordered? Chair hears none.

771. 6:25:45

     The main question is ordered. Question on the passage of the bill by substitute. All those in favor will vote yay. All opposed, nay. Secretary will unlock the machine

772. 6:26:18

     Senator from the second, for what purpose do you rise?

773. 6:26:20

     Just a, just a simple parliamentary inquiry, Mr. President.

774. 6:26:23

     State your inquiry.

775. 6:26:24

     Mr. President-

776. 6:26:24

     Uh-huh.

777. 6:26:25

     President, is it not true that Ricky Bobby said, "If you're not first, you're last"?

778. 6:26:29

     That is, uh, that's very true, Senator. And I, I have to say I've never seen so many people vote no on tax cutting bills here.

779. 6:26:59

     All in the passes of the bill, the yeas are 32, the nays are 14. This bill, having received requisite constitutional majority, is therefore passed by substitute.

780. 6:27:09

     Recognize the majority leader.

781. 6:27:13

     Mr. President, after this great day of supporting the middle class of Georgia, I move that the Senate stand adjourned pursuant to HR998 until 10:00 AM Tuesday, February 17th.

782. 6:27:24

     The majority leader has moved. Secretary, read the announcement.

783. 6:27:27

     The Rules Committee will meet upon adjournment in room 450 of the Capitol. Uh, the DOT Board of Elections has been canceled. The Committee on Education and Youth has been canceled. The Judiciary Committee has been canceled. The Insurance and Labor Com- Mission- Committee has been canceled. The Regulated Industries and Utilities will meet in room 450 of the Capitol upon adjournment of the Senate Rules Committee. Mr. President, that completes the order.

784. 6:27:55

     Any announcements? Any other announcements?

785. 6:27:59

     All right. The majority leader has moved that the Senate stand adjourned until February 17th, 10:00 AM. All those in favor of the motion signify by saying aye.

786. 6:28:10

     Aye.

787. 6:28:10

     All opposed, no.

788. 6:28:12

     No.

789. 6:28:12

     The ayes clearly have it. We're adjourned. Have a good weekend.