Georgia biz leaders upset with state lawmakers
From GONSO’s Jeanne Bonnor:
Disappointment
It’s a word business leaders typically avoid, largely because its use acknowledges that something did not go right.
But in near universal consensus, business leaders across Georgia continue to express bewilderment and, yes, disappointment that state legislators were unable to pass a law that would increase funding for transportation before the legislative session ended April 3.
While transportation was the top priority for business leaders, many also say the legislature failed to act on a host of other pressing issues during this year’s 40-day General Assembly session.
“I guess disappointment seems to be the word that’s used the most and I think it’s the most appropriate one,” said Doug Hertz, president of United Distributors in Smyrna and a key figure in the Get Georgia Moving coalition, which aims to reduce congestion around the state.
Demming Bass, with the Gwinnett Chamber of Commerce, echoed his statement.
“I don’t know how you can continue to disappoint people,” Bass said of the Assembly’s failure to approve a new funding mechanism for transportation. “It was all politics.”
Business leaders, many of whom took the unusual step of supporting a sales tax to fund improvements to roads, bridges and transit, minced no words when they announced in January that transportation was their No. 1 priority for this year’s legislative session. Many vowed comprehensive transportation reform would not fail again, as it had in 2008 when a bill died on the floor of the Senate a little before midnight on the last day of the legislative session.
Instead, the two houses of the General Assembly were unable to reach a compromise on two competing transportation bills, and now, even 10 days after the session ended, the business community is not mincing words about how they feel about this year’s legislative gridlock. And it’s not all about transportation.
“I think everyone was shocked by what an unproductive session it was,” said Renay Blumenthal, the senior vice president of public policy at the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce.
In an op-ed in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution last week, John Rice, vice chairman of GE, whose Energy unit is based in Cobb County, expressed frustration that a “well-written, badly needed bill” aimed at reforming school board governance got caught up in “horse-trading politics at its worst. … How long will we let bad politics and self-serving politicians get in the way of good policies?”
What’s driving much of the business community’s rancor is a core belief that economic development is, as Hertz said, the “lifeblood” for increasing state revenue for services, creating jobs and building more dynamic communities.
To ensure continued economic growth, business leaders say the state needs to reduce congestion around Georgia, a move that would require a new source of revenue.
The need to devote more money to solve transportation woes is so acute that leaders from Walton, Barrow and other counties far outside of central Atlanta said they would support more funding for MARTA, the city’s mass transit system, according to Sam Olens, chairman of the Atlanta Regional Commission. After the Legislature declined to provide more funding to MARTA, the ARC offered money to help the transit system close a funding gap created by falling sales tax revenue.
“The single biggest impediment to economic development is transportation,” said Hertz, whose distribution company employs 1,200 people at sites in Atlanta, Savannah, Albany and other cities in Georgia.
Other issues, including a bill to outlaw embryonic stem cell research, also provoked ire in the business community, for much the same reason: prohibiting such work would deter companies from moving to Georgia. Indeed, the bill to limit scientific inquiry in the state, which did not move beyond the Senate, was seen in the business community as an embarrassment coming, as it did, two months before Atlanta will play host to an international biotech conference where state officials hope to recruit companies to Georgia.
“They didn’t have to pass that,” said Bass of the Gwinnett Chamber.
It’s unclear what the business community’s next step will be; most of the issues will have to wait for the next legislative session, which begins in January. Hertz said Get Georgia Moving may have made a mistake by not endorsing one plan over the other, and he thinks that next year the key to winning the bill’s passage may be support for a plan that authorizes regional taxes for regional projects, rather than a statewide tax.
In the meantime, some economic leaders already have plans to engage in some much-needed “damage control.”
“We are going to have to explain it to prospects,” said Blumenthal, with the Metro Atlanta Chamber. “A lot of prospects know we have traffic, and many cities have traffic. The difference is in Atlanta we are perceived as [not] doing anything about it. We don’t even have a plan.”
Jeanne Bonner is the senior business writer at Georgia Online News Service.
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