For those who can think of nothing else but the upcoming election, let me share a word of advice.

If you fail to listen to the people, you will fail to earn their vote.

So let's stay focused on the future, where anyone who wants to work for a better life can achieve it here in the best state for opportunity.

This morning, Governor Brian Kemp advised lawmakers to keep their focus on the needs of Georgians in this election year.

Good evening, and welcome to day three of the Georgia legislative session.

I'm Donna Lowry in Atlanta.

We'll have much more on the eggs and issues.

Breakfast at the Mercedes-Benz Stadium this morning.

Later in the show, on the show, leaders in the House give us an idea of their policy goals.

And in recent years, the General Assembly has lowered the individual income tax rate.

A Senate committee studied how to eliminate it over the summer, and we'll hear more about that.

We'll talk to two members of the committee, including the chair.

First, we lead off of what happened today with our Capitol correspondent, Sarah Kallis.

Hi, Donna.

Lawmakers started the day bright and early at the annual Eggs and Issues legislative breakfast.

Legislators and business leaders gathered and discussed economic priorities on the field at Mercedes-Benz Stadium, which will host the 2026 FIFA World Cup.

We got our first look at Governor Brian Kemp's budget priorities at his final exit issues Legislative breakfast as the state's top executive, Kemp says the state will invest $1.8 billion in new express lanes in the most congested sections of I-75 in Henry County.

Currently, 45-60 percent of commuters can't get in the express lanes when they need them.

The most.

This funding will enable gDot and Serta to address those issues head on.

Our initial estimates indicate that once these express lanes are completed, as much as 70% more vehicles will be able to pass through that corridor during the rush hours.

That's a great return on investment for our state.

Local road improvements will also be in the budget, Kemp said.

He also announced new funds to curb homelessness in Atlanta ahead of the 2026 FIFA World Cup.

Known as the Homelessness Response Grant.

The state will make a one time investment of $50 million that will be coupled with other funds from public, private and nonprofit nonprofit partners to launch this initiative through very targeted use of funds.

This grant will act as a force multiplier to complement the good work already underway by Mayor Dickens and other champions on this challenging issue.

Awards will go to local governments and nonprofit organizations addressing street level homelessness in Georgia, and it will ensure that every stakeholder, every stakeholder, has equal skin in the game.

We will also see more workforce readiness in this legislative session, Kemp says.

In the coming days, my administration will propose the Education and Workforce Strategy Act.

It will ensure the unprecedented collaboration between the university and technical college systems.

The Georgia Department of Education and others live on long after.

Many of us today are no longer in the positions that we currently occupy.

Leaders of the House and Senate also took to the stage, emphasizing that affordability is this year's theme.

Lieutenant Governor Burt Jones said the state will focus on limiting property tax and reducing the income tax.

This session.

Will concentrate on the income tax, lowering I.T.

And property tax.

Getting a handle on that, looking at insurance costs and everything else, those are all things that are on people's mind right now.

And so as legislators, it's our responsibility to focus on on those issues that that that are, you know, concerning our constituents.

Republican senators say they will put forth legislation to gradually eliminate the state income tax.

Speaker of the House Jon Burns said the House will also double down on reducing property taxes, but through the homestead exemption.

The House will put forward legislation enabling the elimination of the homestead property tax statewide.

Burns also said that literacy and workforce readiness remain priorities of the House.

He said lawmakers will push for an optometry school in Georgia.

Georgia does not have an optometry school, and we know that access to vision care is so important as we continue our efforts to strengthen literacy, because that's what's more important to learning to read.

What's more important than learning to read than ability to see in the classroom, right?

He also said the House will introduce legislation to put a reading coach in every elementary school in the state.

After the event, Georgia Chamber CEO Chris Clark gave his perspective on the business impact of several hot issues at the Capitol, like reducing tax incentives on some industries.

I think some of that is worth us taking a look at.

We do have some outdated tax incentives that are still on the books, but quite frankly, when you look at that total amount out there, it only comes to around $3 billion every year.

So it's not 13 or 14 or 17 billion.

That's enough to make everything up.

But I think at the end of the day, even those states that don't have income taxes still have tax incentives.

The difference is those states don't have an anti gratuity clause.

In Georgia, you can't give a grant directly to a company to do an expansion or come to Georgia.

We don't we don't allow that here.

And so we really do use those tax credits differently.

Lawmakers advocating for income tax elimination, say reducing some tax incentives will help make up for the loss in income tax revenue after the event, Lawmakers filed back to the Capitol, the House and Senate both met without passing any bills.

Tomorrow we will hopefully learn more details about the governor's proposals in his final state of the state address.

That's my Capitol report.

Back to you, Donna.

Thank you.

Sarah.

On this day three of the session, we continue to learn what to expect during the legislative session.

Two of the lawmakers who will help lead.

What happens?

Join us.

House majority leader, Republican Representative Chuck Efstration of Mulberry.

He was first elected to the House of Representatives in 2013 and House Minority Whip, Democratic Representative Sam Park of Lawrenceville.

His first election to the House was in 2016.

Welcome to Lawmakers to both of you.

Great to be with you.

We're going to talk about priorities.

So, leader up for a couple of years now, the speaker has talked about giving Georgia residents a break when it comes to property taxes.

Tell us if this is the year that's going to happen.

Well, thanks for having me, Donna.

Affordability is the big issue this year, and our speaker has outlined the elimination of the homestead property tax statewide.

And that legislation is to be introduced this legislative session.

Georgians are paying so much in property taxes as property values continue to climb.

And so for their homes where they live, the elimination of that property tax would be a huge savings.

Okay, we'll get more on affordability in a moment.

So talk about that tax when it comes to taxes with the Democrats.

We're certainly interested in looking forward to seeing what the Republican caucus will be proposing when it comes to property taxes.

I think leader Istration, you know, mentioned a key aspect that I think there needs to be more focus, which is these increased valuations, these increased property values in which these the underlying cause is the lack of housing supply.

You know, over the past 7-8 years, we've seen the median average price of a home go from about $200,000 to more than $450,000.

So I think while looking at property tax reform is important, we also have to do what we can to expand the supply of affordable housing.

Okay.

Let's move on to education.

Always.

Biggs at the Capitol.

Every year during the legislative session.

What are you talking about with the Republican caucus?

So childhood literacy is a major issue for this legislative session.

Speaker Jon Burns outlined in his speech this morning that a top priority of the state House is literacy, particularly looking at the third grade reading level when only one third of kids statewide are reading proficiently at grade level.

That's a major concern, particularly with the spending and focus that we've had in education.

In the classroom, literacy coaches who can assist teachers in in following a curriculum which is proven to be effective for those kids, is so critical for the long term development of the child for ultimately, issues like workforce development and career readiness.

So that's a big thing with with the Republican caucus, with the Democratic caucus.

With respect to education, you know, the Democratic caucus, we really look at it from a spectrum, from cradle to career.

Certainly, there will be bipartisan support to ensure that we're investing more in literacy.

But with respect to K through 12 education, I think there's some disagreement between the two parties.

Of course, over the past few years, we've had a big debate over vouchers in which just last year we sent $140 million toward private schools and vouchers.

That really undermine especially rural school districts and their ability to teach kids.

The last piece I'd mention on education is student loan debt.

You know, Georgia now ranks third with the highest average student loan debt in the country.

And, of course, Senator Nan Orrock did an excellent job over the off session in doing a study committee on needs based merit needs based aid for higher education, and which hopefully we'll be able to move something on that issue as well.

And she'll be on the show later.

So any more anything more on education you want to mention?

I think education is a top priority right now.

I think that the ability for every child in Georgia after world class education, and for us to meet those standards for reading, are issues that I expect will really advance this session.

Okay, let's get into health care.

Let's let's talk about the fact that Democrats have, for a while now pushed for Medicaid expansion.

Do you expect to do that again?

We will be introducing additional legislation, including obtaining a fiscal note to understand the true impact and cost of Medicaid expansion.

But of course, this is not a pilot.

There's more than 40 states that have expanded Medicaid.

It has lowered the cost of private health insurance premiums because we're expanding the pool, lowering the risk.

And, you know, of course, you know, right now, health care prices are skyrocketing in large part because of the federal government and the Republican majority in which, you know, we're seeing health care premiums for those increasing by 1,000, $2,000 already, about 190,000 Georgians with ACA plans have fallen off.

And so it's a very, very concerning situation, especially when we're looking at tax cuts that provide an average benefit of approximately 250 to $300.

That's fantastic.

But if your healthcare prices are going up by 1,000 $2,000, the affordable the affordability crisis continues.

So you'll expect some legislation in that area.

What about with health care?

With your caucus?

Well, a lot of issues have been raised, a lot to unpack.

I'll just say this.

The affordability issue is is a major focus.

Accessibility and affordability in health care, particularly rural health care access continues to be a major priority of the Georgia House, and there are many measures which we've worked to advance in that area.

I know that as we're discussing the cost that Georgians are facing in these expensive times, certainly in response to the skyrocketing inflation caused by policies out of Washington, D.C.

Over the past few years, we're now in a position where we can, I think, actually address that with tax relief, with insurance premium costs, relief, with a study committee that we've had this year, legislation coming and with reducing costs for first time home buyers to be able to afford that first home build long term wealth, wealth through home ownership.

I know the speaker also talked about trying to increase the workforce in the health health sector.

You know.

Absolutely.

So there have been new educational programs opened across the state over the past few years.

Training for health care workers so that we can meet the demand.

Certainly, as we have a population that requires additional health care workers.

Okay.

What else?

What do you have on your plate?

I would say, you know, with respect to the health care workforce piece, again, certainly support the speaker's focus on expanding the workforce.

There have been multiple studies that say that Medicaid expansion would create 30,000 additional health care jobs in the state of Georgia.

So I think the best way, if that is the speaker's priority, is to work in a bipartisan manner to expand Medicaid for for Georgia.

I just have to address that.

Right now.

We're seeing policy out of Washington, D.C.

Talking about not funding commitments that were made previously to states that did expand Medicaid.

Georgia is in a terrific position financially right now because of the strong fiscal leadership of Governor Brian Kemp and the Republicans in the General Assembly.

We don't have a huge hole in our budget that other states are facing.

We actually have reserves that make this state better prepared for any financial uncertainty which may happen in the future.

Did you want to add to that?

Absolutely.

I think we have a historic surplus right now in which we're simply sitting on it, rather than investing in people.

You know, I appreciate the governor's interest in building out a highway, $2 billion in which I think ground would not be broken until 2030.

How fantastic would it be if we invested $1.8 billion in the health of Georgians today on expanding access to health care, on expanding access to child care?

I think there's a lot the state of Georgia can do, but unfortunately, under the current leadership, we haven't done that yet.

Okay, let's talk about any other priorities that we haven't talked about that you were looking at.

So tax reduction is a major focus.

Over the past few years, the General Assembly has reduced the income tax by two tenths of a percent each year, $800 million savings for Georgians.

And there's a proposal to do that again this year, actually bring the income tax rate below 5%.

That's in addition to the property tax relief and a real focus on reducing insurance premiums.

That's healthcare insurance premiums.

Automobile, homeowner's insurance.

We've actually seen three carriers since the passage of legislation last year to to reduce rates.

And additional carriers are coming into the state.

Ultimately, more competition is going to drive down costs, which will help all Georgians.

Okay.

Anything else you want to add?

Data centers, I think, is something that we should certainly closely examine.

You know, the cost of data centers.

I think we're providing up to $470 million in tax credits every single year, in which 70% of data centers coming to Georgia would still remain.

Okay, unfortunately, we're going to have to make that the final word, but I thank you so much, both of you, for being here, and we're certainly going to keep up with everything.

Great to be with you.

Well, Georgia joined nine other states and eliminated state income taxes.

Coming up, we'll talk to two senators who serve on a study committee looking into that issue.

Excellent, excellent.

You guys are really, really.

Great.

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It's a Georgia thing.

Welcome back to Lawmakers.

I'm Donna Lowry.

We're going to look closely at a Senate study recommendation to eliminate income taxes.

With me are Republican Senator Blake Tillery of Vidalia.

He has served in the state Senate since 2016 and is the Senate chair of the powerful Appropriations Committee and Democratic Senator Nan Orrock of Atlanta.

She was elected to the Georgia Senate in 2006 after spending ten terms in the House.

Welcome to you both to Lawmakers.

I appreciate having you here.

So both of you have spent months on the Georgia Senate Special Committee for the Elimination of Georgia's Income Tax.

So, Chairman Tillery, I want to start with who did you have talked to you who testified?

Well, hopefully saying the title is.

I know that's the longest I know.

So I think it makes a lot of sense for folks.

We had we had everyday Georgians come in and talk.

We had a police chief, we had people who owned businesses.

We had a mom who was talking about child care expenses.

And turns out that it didn't take you didn't have to go very far to find out that everyday Georgians are feeling the affordability crunch in their pocketbooks daily, and they're screaming for help.

And I'm listening.

You heard a lot to Senator.

I did, and actually, I would have loved to have seen some more experts than than the ones that were brought in who have been beating the drum against income tax for longer than some of us have been alive.

The devil's in the details.

Okay.

And we'll we'll see.

We're going to get into some.

Of those.

Okay.

So we're going to go through some of the highlights.

We show the flier in the committee's executive summary.

And have you both comment briefly on each one of them.

So let's start with we recommend making the first $50,000 for individuals and $100,000 for joint filers completely tax free beginning in 2027.

We also recommend reducing the state income tax rate for all other families and businesses.

Chairman Tillery.

Yeah, I mean, it speaks for itself.

What we have noticed is that the folks at the bottom end are feeling that affordability crisis the most.

If you're making $1 million a year, you may be feeling a crunch, but you're making hundred, $125,000 as a married couple, making $50,000 individually, you're trying to figure out how you're paying for gas, groceries, child care, your power bill.

If we can eliminate the income tax on that first 50,000, that's $2,500 a year in a person making $50,000 pocket every year.

You like it?

Senator?

Well, the other side of that story is that that that cuts $16 billion out of our state budget.

And long term, I don't see how we can afford that when we have high needs in every sector of funding, child care funding, funding our prison system every, every agency in the state is is down.

We don't we're not fully staffing our agencies.

And we've got our our vulnerable children in the foster system right now, the $180 million in the red.

Okay.

So we're there's a lot to talk about.

Okay.

I'm going to let you talk about I want to get through some more though.

First another highlight these proposals completely eliminate the state income tax on two thirds of all working Georgians, while drastically reducing the tax burden on everyone else, right?

Under our plan, if you're making 50,000 or less your tax, your income tax liability is eliminated.

In Georgia, if you're married, filing jointly.

All of it in 2027, it's gone.

If you're married, filing jointly your first $100,000 is exempt.

If you're making more than $100,000, it's $5,190 in your pocket every single year from now until eternity.

It's not just $250 a year, $500 a year.

It's forever.

What do you think?

Well, I think the proposal actually would would dramatically challenge us as a state to find the funding that we need for so many underfunded responsibilities that the state has toward its citizens.

Okay.

Next, two thirds of individual taxpayers would have no state income tax liability under this proposal beginning in 2027.

No income tax two thirds.

Correct.

So then this plan, as we were going through debating and hearing from our colleagues on the other side, one of the things they said is that all the benefits go to the rich.

We wanted to make sure that this benefit was applied equally to all Georgians.

And so what we did is said, let's exempt the first 50,000.

If you're single on all Georgians, 100,000 if you're married on all Georgians, regardless of your income, and applied it across.

What that ends up doing, though, is if you're making less than $100,000, it eliminates your income tax liability entirely.

That's two thirds of Georgians.

There's no way you can say that this only benefits the rich.

When every family making less than $100,000 now has zero state income tax liability.

Senator O'Rourke.

Well, the devil's in the details.

70, 74% of the benefit would go to people earning six figures or more per year, $11.8 billion, I think is what it would come in at.

Okay, let's get to the next one.

This proposal does not increase the sales tax nor creates property tax, nor does it cut government services for Georgians.

Chairman Tillery.

The folks who are talking about affordability but not willing to do anything about it, will always throw an excuse.

And the excuse that was thrown out this time is what the state's going to do is instead of taking it out of your left pocket, they're going to grab it out of your right pocket instead.

And we said, no, we're not.

We're not going to charge a new sales tax.

We're not going to add a property tax.

The state charges no property tax.

Now why would we add that on?

And we developed a plan that literally answered those concerns, didn't raise a sales tax, didn't put a tax on groceries, didn't charge a property tax, didn't majorly benefit the wealthy.

If you'll find out in the first two years, it's a $6 billion plan.

Over 4 billion goes to those making 100,000 or less.

We answer all those questions, yet we still hear that affordability is an issue, yet we're not willing to do anything about it.

So where is the money coming from?

How are you replacing that money?

Glad you asked me.

So you know, I've chaired the budget now for seven.

This will be my seventh term chairing the budget.

So I guess I'm uniquely qualified to talk about it.

Last year we brought in about $2 billion more in expenses than revenue.

So there's 2 billion the first year you need three.

If you move back from a cash standpoint where we've done bonds in the past, back to bonds, you create about 700 million more.

The total cost is actually $5.87 billion.

That's about 2.9 a year.

There's your 2.9 to cover.

Year one in year two.

What we're suggesting is that all we should do is prioritize people over companies.

I heard Chris Clark say $3 billion a year on tax credits.

He's playing funny math.

He's not talking about the sales tax exemptions.

Let's add all those in.

We give away in corporate giveaways.

Over $30 billion a year.

Take 10% of those.

You can eliminate Georgia's income tax on two thirds of Georgians and give every Georgian a break for every year until eternity.

I'll take that bet.

Throw me in that Brier patch.

So cutting cutting back on some of these tax breaks, but also the money that usually goes into that pot at the end of the year that has the surplus.

You're saying that that is some of the money you're talking about.

Saying we brought in more revenue last year than we had in expenses.

We're going to apply it somewhere.

Let's apply it in giving it back to the people who sent it to begin with.

Okay.

Well, you know, a person getting a tax refund cannot go out and build the services they need for their disabled child.

We need to put money together as Georgians to have a state budget that's robust enough to deal with.

We've got 7,000 families on the waiting list now with disabled children that cannot get services.

And what we keep hearing from the Republicans is, well, there's there's not we can't afford it.

There's not enough money for that.

There's not enough money for us to have financial aid for needy students to go to college.

There's not enough money for this.

There's not enough money for that.

And that's what the word is that comes down.

But yet you're going to really threaten half of the state budget by doing away with income tax.

Your response?

We spent over $2 billion on mental health and developmental disabilities.

Each year.

We spend 54% over $13 billion on education.

There is no way you can say by looking at what we fund with health care making up 23% of our budget and education making up 50-4 percent of our budgets, that Georgia does not prioritize those areas.

What we need to prioritize now, though, is those families making less than $100,000 who I don't consider wealthy.

That's your firefighters, your nurses, your police officers, your teachers that we have an opportunity to completely eliminate their income tax liability.

Why would we not do it?

You're the budget guy.

So not getting rid of things that people are used to right now.

Yeah.

Under what you're.

We've shown a way to do it in the current budget space.

What we have to get rid of is the corporate welfare and subsidies that we've been plotting out for years.

I heard someone say earlier that the data tax credit is 470.

No, it's 740.

They transposed their numbers.

It was only 17 million years ago.

So now it's 740 million.

You know, we have a tax break of 1.2 billion.

You start adding these up.

You only need 3 billion a year to eliminate Georgia's income tax.

It's there.

You just have to put people over companies.

So you would agree with the data centers cutting the brakes to tax breaks to data centers.

That absolutely needs to be tackled.

Yes.

Because the they are got a tax break that they didn't need.

They would be here anyway without it.

Sure.

That's that's their places to look for tax expenditures in the budget.

But we, we are one the 48 states do financial aid for needy students to go to college in Georgia.

We spend 1% of our financial aid on needy students going to college.

So their needs that should be funded, that are not in our current budget, that should be there.

And that's that's one example.

The our foster, our foster, child system is is very, very challenged.

Mental health.

We're not beginning to scratch the surface of funding the needs for mental health for both adults and for children.

So we hear this every year that the state doesn't have the money to pay for children and families facing hunger that it just.

Or to run humane state prisons where staff and and inmates don't have their lives threatened and taken in that setting.

We need to and we do a bit.

But with the commitment needs to be much greater.

Instead of blowing a hole in our state budget because, okay, $20 billion is is what we're gathering sales tax.

A few seconds to respond.

You've heard Senator Orrock tell you about all the things that government does poorly.

Why would we want to throw more money into a hole of things that we've done poorly?

We're incredibly inefficient at programs, allow people to keep their own money.

They can afford their own power bill, their own gas bill, their own grocery bill.

I'm going to bet on them.

Okay.

Well.

People all over the state are turned out.

Some public service commissioners that because of high electricity costs, we're.

Going.

To have to leave it like that.

I appreciate both of you being here.

There's so much more to talk about.

There is indeed, Donna, and we appreciate the opportunity.

Well, that does it for today's show.

Tomorrow, Governor Brian Kemp gives his final state of the state address, and we'll have a special 1 hour show that with that address and the Democratic response.

Have a good evening.