The
Lee Tax Shift
Friday, August 3, 2012
Columbia County, GA
By
Kurt Huttar
Last
Tuesday, July 31, 2012, saw the completion of the biggest tax shift
in CSRA and Georgia history with the passage of the 1% sales tax for transportation called T-Splost. Less than
two months after Columbia County Representatives Lee Anderson and Ben
Harbin voted for $tens of millions in new sales
tax exemptions for Delta Airlines, Delta, Georgia's domineering airline, contributed
$225,000
used to convince easily-swayed voters to vote themselves a 33% sales
tax increase
on food.
Perhaps
Delta, once notorious for sending passengers on the last leg back to
Augusta on buses, wants safer roads on which to transport shafted
customers upon whom it foisted an $8 billion tax increase.
Anderson,
now a candidate for the 12th
Congressional District seat now held by Democrat John Barrow, voted
to cut Delta's sales taxes but voted for these sales tax increases on
us in the middle class. Here
we find Lee dining with George Bowen, the lobbyist who greased
through the fuel tax exemption for Delta and Georgia Power.
Worse is the behavior of Georgia Power Company, who gave $395,000 to deluge us with pro T-Splost propaganda after the same legislation saved them $hundreds of millions. It is noted that said cost savings supposedly are given back to consumers via fuel adjustments to their rates, but how many citizens trust those calculations? This also came after Lee Anderson voted in 2009 for Georgia Power's advance billing of $1 billion in profits, hidden as "construction costs." We got double digit rate increases from that, too.
Yes,
we voters are now going to have to pay Lee's 14% T-Splost sales tax
increase on those double-digit, advance-profit charges on our power bills.
Here,
the Georgia Gang, including former Augusta Chronicle opinion editor,
Phil Kent, questioned the rush by Lee Anderson and others to pass the
bill.
Lee could not be dissuaded by pleas of "Read the BILL, Lee!"
Anderson,
a hay farmer, also voted for a $500 million a year hospital bed tax.
How
did he make a “No Tax Increase” Pledge with Grover Norguist's
Amercans for Tax Reform and vote for these tax increases? Can we believe his promises?
It
was most frustrating for us in Columbia County to only be able to put
up a few score “VOTE NO” signs, then go home to find pro-T-Splost
mailers in the mailbox.
I had to drive by scads of “Vote Yes” signs
illegally placed in medians and rights of way, like this one:
I had to listen to broadcast
appeals funded by these corporations who just got sales tax cuts.
Finally, I got a batch of signs from Augusta County Commissioner Joe Bowles, who courageously fought adoption of this terrible tax.
On
August 21, we have chance to just say 'No!” once again. This time
it is a vote against legislators stupidly subordinating our Columbia
County votes to those of ignorant and corrupt Augustans. This time it
is a vote mindful that this dastardly T-Splost tax begins to be
collected January 1.
Just say no to Lee Anderson for Congress.
Lobbyists
love him. The middle class groans under the burdens their orgies of
money and excess we are left with.
Isn't
it time the people won one?***
KH
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