Barnes: Education must be top priorityFormer Georgia Gov. Roy Barnes says he gets plenty of questions from voters on taxes, education, the economy and other issues. But Barnes says he has one question for them. “If you had to pick one person to run your personal business, the business that you built, and to determine your future financial security and the security of your family. And the only two you could choose were Roy Barnes or Nathan Deal. Who would you choose?” said Barnes. Barnes faces Republican Deal and Libertarian Party candidate John Monds in the Nov. 2 General Election for governor. He met Saturday with The Daily Citizen’s editorial board before meeting with area teachers and holding a campaign rally in Dalton. “Education has to be the No. 1 priority. It is what creates jobs,” he said, noting that just one third of those currently unemployed hold some sort of post-high school education. “Even in this economic downturn and with this high unemployment there are still jobs that employers can’t fill because they can’t find people with the skills they need,” he said. Barnes said that he believes both Republicans and Democrats will have a common agenda next year when it comes to education. “We’ve had economic downturns before, and we’ve never furloughed teachers,” he said. “Democrats and Republicans alike realize that furloughing teachers and shortening the school year is not the way to create jobs, be prosperous and plan for the next generation.” So how would he go about restoring some of the funds that have been cut from education? Barnes said one key element would be to allow local governments to collect sales taxes at the point of sale and remit the state’s portion to Atlanta. Currently, the state is responsible for collecting those taxes and sending a portion back to local governments. Barnes says local governments will do a better job of making sure that everyone who is supposed to pay those taxes do so. Based on states that have moved to “point of sale” collections, he expects the state can collect an additional $600 million without raising tax rates. He says the state should also look at ending, or at least suspending until the recession is over, tax breaks it has granted to various special interests such as $200 million to $250 million in tax breaks to insurance companies. “I believe in broad application of low rates,” he said Barnes said he hopes the commission the state appointed this year to recommend ways to overhaul the state’s tax system will look at all the exemptions to both the sales tax and the income tax and find ways to find ways to cut the rates while broadening the tax base. “On the sales tax, we exempt more than we collect. We exempt $10.6 billion, and we only collect about $6.6 billion,” he said. Barnes said he also favors an independent commission to handle redistricting next year. “This is one place that Gov. Perdue and I agree. We ought to have an independent commission, that isn’t political, to redraw all the congressional and legislative lines,” he said. “It should be charged with creating as many politically even districts as it can. What’s wrong with Congress is there are too many safe districts.” Barnes said Georgia is going to have to act on its own to protect Atlanta’s drinking water supply now that a federal court has basically ruled Lake Lanier off limits. The court gave Georgia, Alabama and Florida until July 2012 to reach an agreement to share water from Lanier and the Chattahoochee River system. “I don’t believe we are going to be able to negotiate our way out of it because we don’t have anything to negotiate. And we don’t seem to have the legislative delegation that is strong enough to be able to get a reauthorization or change in focus of Lake Lanier,” he said. Barnes said that Atlanta and other places will have to replace aging water systems to reduce the amount they lose to leaks.. “We lose 15 to 40 percent of the water in all the water systems in the Chattahoochee basin because they are old systems. We have to rebuild those systems,” he said. “We also need to look at the storage of water. We had planned 17 reservoirs north of Atlanta. We had started the funding of the first one of the Tallapoosa River. That got canceled when I left office. To re-start that process now will take years,” he said. Barnes said the state also needs to look at underground storage of water, saying that Northwest Georgia has a geology that lends itself to storing water underground. Barnes said that if elected he can work with the General Assembly even if it continues to be controlled by Republicans. “I don’t care where good solutions come from, whether Democrats or Republicans,” he said. “When I was governor, Republicans weren’t a majority, but they were close, and I had a very good relationship with them. The truth is I’m tired of the nuts on both sides. I’m tired of the partisanship on both sides. We’ve got a common agenda that we can work on.”

Published 2:53 am Saturday, October 18, 2014

Former Georgia Gov. Roy Barnes says he gets plenty of questions from voters on taxes, education, the economy and other issues. But Barnes says he has one question for them.

“If you had to pick one person to run your personal business, the business that you built, and to determine your future financial security and the security of your family. And the only two you could choose were Roy Barnes or Nathan Deal. Who would you choose?” said Barnes.

Barnes faces Republican Deal and Libertarian Party candidate John Monds in the Nov. 2 General Election for governor.

He met Saturday with The Daily Citizen’s editorial board before meeting with area teachers and holding a campaign rally in Dalton.

“Education has to be the No. 1 priority. It is what creates jobs,” he said, noting that just one third of those currently unemployed hold some sort of post-high school education.

“Even in this economic downturn and with this high unemployment there are still jobs that employers can’t fill because they can’t find people with the skills they need,” he said.

Barnes said that he believes both Republicans and Democrats will have a common agenda next year when it comes to education.

“We’ve had economic downturns before, and we’ve never furloughed teachers,” he said. “Democrats and Republicans alike realize that furloughing teachers and shortening the school year is not the way to create jobs, be prosperous and plan for the next generation.”

So how would he go about restoring some of the funds that have been cut from education?

Barnes said one key element would be to allow local governments to collect sales taxes at the point of sale and remit the state’s portion to Atlanta. Currently, the state is responsible for collecting those taxes and sending a portion back to local governments. Barnes says local governments will do a better job of making sure that everyone who is supposed to pay those taxes do so. Based on states that have moved to “point of sale” collections, he expects the state can collect an additional $600 million without raising tax rates.

He says the state should also look at ending, or at least suspending until the recession is over, tax breaks it has granted to various special interests such as $200 million to $250 million in tax breaks to insurance companies.

“I believe in broad application of low rates,” he said

Barnes said he hopes the commission the state appointed this year to recommend ways to overhaul the state’s tax system will look at all the exemptions to both the sales tax and the income tax and find ways to find ways to cut the rates while broadening the tax base.

“On the sales tax, we exempt more than we collect. We exempt $10.6 billion, and we only collect about $6.6 billion,” he said.

Barnes said he also favors an independent commission to handle redistricting next year.

“This is one place that Gov. Perdue and I agree. We ought to have an independent commission, that isn’t political, to redraw all the congressional and legislative lines,” he said. “It should be charged with creating as many politically even districts as it can. What’s wrong with Congress is there are too many safe districts.”

Barnes said Georgia is going to have to act on its own to protect Atlanta’s drinking water supply now that a federal court has basically ruled Lake Lanier off limits. The court gave Georgia, Alabama and Florida until July 2012 to reach an agreement to share water from Lanier and the Chattahoochee River system.

“I don’t believe we are going to be able to negotiate our way out of it because we don’t have anything to negotiate. And we don’t seem to have the legislative delegation that is strong enough to be able to get a reauthorization or change in focus of Lake Lanier,” he said.

Barnes said that Atlanta and other places will have to replace aging water systems to reduce the amount they lose to leaks..

“We lose 15 to 40 percent of the water in all the water systems in the Chattahoochee basin because they are old systems. We have to rebuild those systems,” he said.

“We also need to look at the storage of water. We had planned 17 reservoirs north of Atlanta. We had started the funding of the first one of the Tallapoosa River. That got canceled when I left office. To re-start that process now will take years,” he said.

Barnes said the state also needs to look at underground storage of water, saying that Northwest Georgia has a geology that lends itself to storing water underground.

Barnes said that if elected he can work with the General Assembly even if it continues to be controlled by Republicans.

“I don’t care where good solutions come from, whether Democrats or Republicans,” he said. “When I was governor, Republicans weren’t a majority, but they were close, and I had a very good relationship with them. The truth is I’m tired of the nuts on both sides. I’m tired of the partisanship on both sides. We’ve got a common agenda that we can work on.”