{"id":1093,"date":"2018-10-22T02:29:08","date_gmt":"2018-10-22T09:29:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/georgiagreenparty.org\/?p=1093"},"modified":"2018-10-22T02:29:08","modified_gmt":"2018-10-22T09:29:08","slug":"2018_ballot_questions_no_on_1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dev.wp.georgiagreenparty.org\/?p=1093","title":{"rendered":"No on One &#8211; Taxpayers and Elected Officials should Prioritize Tax Expenditures, not a private industry group"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em><strong>CA #1 &#8212; Urging a NO vote<\/strong><\/em><br \/>\n<em>Creates the Georgia Outdoor Stewardship Trust Fund\u00a0 to protect water quality, wildlife habitat and parks<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Constitutional Amendment: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.legis.ga.gov\/legislation\/en-US\/Display\/20172018\/HR\/238\">HR-238<\/a> * <a href=\"http:\/\/www.legis.ga.gov\/Legislation\/20172018\/178962.pdf\">HR-238-AP (pdf)<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Enabling Legislation: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.legis.ga.gov\/Legislation\/en-US\/display\/20172018\/HB\/332\">HB-332<\/a> * <a href=\"http:\/\/www.legis.ga.gov\/Legislation\/20172018\/178961.pdf\">HB-332-AP (pdf) <\/a><\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Does the ballot question and measure name accurately and fully reflect the effect of passage without obfuscation?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>No, an existing fund of the state, repealed by the enabling legislation, already provides a source of dedicated funds for these purposes. The effect of the adoption of this measure would be to divert certain sales taxes from the general fund to this purpose, denying the ability of the Georgia Assembly to allocate those funds in other ways to meet our shifting priorities.\u00a0 While it took a two-third majority of both houses to put this question before the voters, with no change to the Constitution the Assembly already has the authority to allocate these funds and more for these purposes.<\/p>\n<p><strong><em>Who would benefit from the proposed change?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Members of the Outdoor Industry Association would benefit most by seeing the tax collected on their retail sales dedicated to public expenditures likely to increase demand for their products, rather than being allocated in the General Fund for other priorities of the state.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Who supports the passage of this measure?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>Outdoor Industry Association &#8212; a trade organization including DuPont<br \/>\nand a wide number of outdoor outfitter manufacturers.<\/p>\n<p>Russell M Currey, Boxwood Capital, LLC ($10,000)<br \/>\nTall Timbers Research, Inc. ($10,000)<br \/>\nJames Lews Glenn, Sea Island Company ($5,000)<br \/>\nJames A Lanier, Jr., Retired ($5,000)<br \/>\nScott Satterwhite, Retured ($5,000)<\/p>\n<p>The Conservation Fund ($50,000)<br \/>\nThe Nature Conservancy ($50,000)<br \/>\nThe Trust for Public Lands Action Fund ($10,000)<br \/>\nThe Georgia Conservancy<br \/>\nGeorgia Wildlife Federation<br \/>\nPark Pride<\/p>\n<p><strong><em>Who supports the defeat of this measure?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em><strong>What is the Georgia Green Party&#8217;s recommended position?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>The Georgia Green Party <strong>urges a NO vote<\/strong> on Constitutional Amendment #1.<\/p>\n<p>This change if ratified would provide a dedicated pot of public sales tax money which would be spent according to the priorities of a private trade association, and do so in a way which would bind the hands of future elected officials to prioritize expenditures outside the scope of those preferred by this industrial trade group.\u00a0 The existence of this tax allocation would serve as cover for the Assembly to cap funds for this purpose to that generated by this tax dedication.\u00a0 The effect of this change is non-lapsing and to revisit this allocation would again require a vote of the citizens in a General Election.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>CA #1 &#8212; Urging a NO vote Creates the Georgia Outdoor Stewardship Trust Fund\u00a0 to protect water quality, wildlife habitat and parks Constitutional Amendment: HR-238 * HR-238-AP (pdf) Enabling Legislation: HB-332 * HB-332-AP (pdf) Does the ballot question and measure name accurately and fully reflect the effect of passage without obfuscation? No, an existing fund [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1093","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2018-general-election","category-ballot-question-details"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.wp.georgiagreenparty.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1093","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.wp.georgiagreenparty.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.wp.georgiagreenparty.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.wp.georgiagreenparty.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.wp.georgiagreenparty.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1093"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dev.wp.georgiagreenparty.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1093\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.wp.georgiagreenparty.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1093"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.wp.georgiagreenparty.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1093"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.wp.georgiagreenparty.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1093"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}