by Dave Williams | Dec 12, 2024 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Ga., is joining a renewed push by Senate Democrats to remove medical debt from credit reports.
Warnock, chairman of a Senate Banking subcommittee, and Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, the committee’s chairman, are asking the head of the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) to complete proposed rulemaking aimed at protecting families from being penalized for seeking medical care.
“This rule would provide vital protections,” the two senators wrote in a letter to CFPB Director Rohit Chopra dated Dec. 10. “It would bar lenders from broadly using information about medical debt to make credit eligibility determinations, prohibit the inclusion of medical debt on credit reports, prohibit creditors from repossessing medical devices … and not penalize people for seeking treatment and care.”
In Georgia, 27% of rural residents have medical collections on their credit report, 10 percentage points higher than the national average.
“This issue is far too important to remain unsettled any longer,” Warnock and Brown wrote in the letter to Chopra. “We respectfully urge you to swiftly finalize this rule.”
The CFPB was created in 2012 as part of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform law and has been a target of congressional Republicans ever since.
The latest salvo aimed at the watchdog consumer protection agency came last week from Elon Musk, the multi-billionaire tech magnate named by GOP President-elect Donald Trump to co-lead a new federal Department of Government Efficiency. Musk called for the agency – long seen as the brainchild of liberal Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass. – to be eliminated.
by Dave Williams | Dec 11, 2024 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – Georgia tax collections rose by 2.3% last month compared with November of last year, the state Department of Revenue reported Wednesday.
The revenue agency brought in $2.38 billion in November, an increase of $52.9 million over the same month last year.
Despite the overall increase, individual income tax receipts fell by 8.3% last month, driven in part by an extension of the income tax filing and payment deadline from April of next year until May 1 because of Hurricane Helene.
Net sales taxes, on the other hand, rose by a healthy 5.9% in November.
Corporate income tax collections declined by 30.6% last month, resulting from a 25.7% drop in tax payments coupled with a 7.5% increase in refunds the revenue department issued.
by Dave Williams | Dec 11, 2024 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – Georgia’s seven commercial airports are facing a funding gap that threatens to drive businesses out of the state, the Georgia Department of Transportation’s aviation program manager said Wednesday.
“Without increased investments, projects to improve infrastructure and enhance capacity will be deferred and Georgia’s airports will continue to fall behind neighboring states,” Collette Williams told members of the State Transportation Board’s Intermodal Committee.
Williams said a study of regional airports in Augusta, Brunswick, Columbus, Macon, Savannah, Albany, and Valdosta identified funding needs for capital improvement projects of $83.5 million per year. However, the airports receive only $16 million annually from the Federal Aviation Administration and $2.8 million a year from the state, she said.
In comparison, commercial airports in North Carolina are receiving $89 million per year in capital projects funding, while Tennessee airports are getting $33 million annually, she said.
Williams said those other states collect a dedicated sales tax on aviation fuel, while all of the state funding Georgia provides to commercial airports comes from the state’s general-fund budget.
“We really need to start looking at how we close this gap,” board member Cathy Williams of Columbus said. “When a private airplane or a corporate airplane decides to move because the facilities aren’t what they needed … that is business we are not going to get back.”
Committee Chair Emily Dunn of Blue Ridge said board members need to raise awareness among members of the General Assembly – who hold the state’s purse strings – of the funding gap confronting Georgia’s commercial airports.
by Dave Williams | Dec 11, 2024 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – A poll of Georgia voters conducted after last month’s elections showed a high level of confidence in the voting process.
According to the survey of 1,541 Georgians who voted in the presidential election, 98% said they didn’t experience any problems casting a ballot. In addition, 98.5% said they felt safe casting their ballot, and 98.3% gave poll workers high marks for their performance.
“These results show what we’ve been saying all along: Georgia elections are secure and accessible,” Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said. “We appreciate the hard work that Georgia’s 159 election directors did to make it a success.”
The poll, released on Monday, also found that 96.2% of voters surveyed reported a positive experience while voting, while 93.9% said they found it easy to cast a ballot.
Nearly 81% of voters experienced a wait time of less than 10 minutes.
The survey also found that early voting in person has become highly popular in Georgia. Nearly 78% of voters surveyed said they cast their ballots early in person, while only a little more than 17% said they voted on Election Day.
Not surprisingly, there were some partisan differences in responses to the poll questions. Only 33.9% of self-identified Democrats said they were “very confident” that the votes in Georgia were counted as the voters intended, compared to 59% of self-identified Republicans.
GOP activists charged widespread voter fraud in Georgia four years ago, when Democrat Joe Biden became the first Democrat to carry the state since 1992, allegations that were dismissed by various courts. But GOP voters showed more confidence in the voting process after former President Donald Trump defeated Vice President Kamala Harris in Georgia last month.
The poll was conducted by the University of Georgia’s School of Public and International Affairs.
by Dave Williams | Dec 10, 2024 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATHENS – Gov. Brian Kemp announced Tuesday that he will unveil a disaster relief package for Georgia victims of Hurricane Helene next month during the first week of the 2025 legislative session.
The initiative will include both budgetary proposals and a legislative component, Kemp told returning and newly elected members of the General Assembly during a luncheon on the University of Georgia campus that wrapped up the 34th Biennial Institute for Georgia Legislators.
Hurricane Helene marched through South Georgia and north through the Augusta area in late September, causing heavy rainfall and widespread flooding as well as extensive power outages. Kemp and First Lady Marty Kemp toured 16 counties in the hurricane’s path during the days following the storm.
“We’ve gone through probably the most damaging storm in our history,” Kemp said. “We saw unbelievable damage and communities that will probably never be the same.”
Kemp has asked the Biden administration and Congress to act quickly on his request for $12.2 billion in federal disaster relief for Georgians who suffered losses from Helene. The storm wreaked at least $5.5 billion in damage to the state’s agriculture and timber industries alone.
Not content to wait for the federal government, Kemp has suspended the state sales tax on gasoline and other motor fuels and redirected $100 million from a state capital projects fund to provide financial support for farmers affected by the massive storm and debris cleanup for owners of damaged timberland.
Besides relief to hurricane victims, Kemp said other issues he will prioritize early in the General Assembly include tort reform, strengthening education and the workforce in Georgia, and public safety, including additional steps to combat human trafficking.
“All of these measures are doable if we work together,” he said. “The (election) races have been run. … Now, it’s time for us to work together for the state.”
Newly elected and returning lawmakers gather in Athens for three days every other December following the elections for a preview of issues the legislature is likely to take up during the upcoming session.
by Dave Williams | Dec 9, 2024 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – Supporters of a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) plan to add about 22,000 acres to the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge asked the agency Monday to consider a larger expansion to permanently prevent mining there.
The FWS unveiled the planned expansion in October, which would allow the agency to negotiate with owners of the land who are willing to either sell their property to the federal government or establish a conservation easement.
The expansion would not directly affect the Georgia Environmental Protection Division’s decision whether to grant Alabama-based Twin Pines Mineral a permit to open a titanium mine along Trail Ridge adjacent to the Okefenokee Swamp’s eastern rim.
However, the mine’s opponents have seized upon the expansion as an opportunity to stop the mine, much as the DuPont Chemical Co. abandoned plans for a mine there during the 1990s and donated 6,700 acres of its land to the refuge.
“With this FWS process, we can return to the only strategy that will guarantee the swamp’s permanent protection: land acquisition,” Josh Marks, president of Georgians for the Okefenokee, said Monday night during an online public hearing on the expansion plan.
Marks and other speakers urged the FWS to think beyond the 22,000-acre expansion and include other land adjacent to the refuge owned by Rayonier Inc. and Toledo Manufacturing.
“Thousands of acres are still vulnerable,” said Christian Hunt, senior policy analyst for the nonprofit Defenders of Wildlife. “Mining threatens to destroy all the qualities the refuge was created to protect.”
Scientific research has shown a mine would threaten water levels inside the largest blackwater swamp in North America, increase the risk of wildfires, harm wildlife, and release toxic contaminants into nearby surface and groundwater.
Twin Pines officials say the project would not harm the Okefenokee.
Opposition to the proposed mine has galvanized Georgians across the state. More than 90 members of the state House of Representatives have sponsored legislation aimed at protecting the Okefenokee from mining, and elected officials representing 20 local governments have passed resolutions opposing the mine.
Michael Lusk, who manages the refuge for the FWS, said agency officials have discussed expanding the refuge to include all of Trail Ridge but are sticking with the proposed 22,000-acre expansion for now.
Lusk said the FWS does not intend to seize any private property through the government’s power of eminent domain, something it hasn’t done since the 1970s.
“Nothing in this proposal compels anyone to sell their land,” he said. “If they’re a willing seller, we can talk to them about selling it or setting up a conservation easement.”
