Recently, on the third day of the General Assembly legislative session, Governor Nathan Deal gave his State of the State address. Since taking office, Governor Deal has worked with the General Assembly to budget conservatively, downsize state government, implement real tax reform and create more than 217,000 private-sector jobs.Georgia has been blessed during the recession to continue to grow jobs. This does not happen by accident. It happens because of good sound fiscal policy. I always say, "Government does not create jobs; the private-sector creates jobs. But, what government can do is provide an atmosphere that is conducive to job growth."
Let's examine three areas:Education: For Georgia to retain, expand and grow new jobs, it is imperative that we have quality education. In our budget we will allocate $8 billion to K-12 education — an increase of $547 million, which is the largest single increase in seven years. We will also address digital learning by investing $44.8 million so that kids in every corner of our state have access to the Internet. We will be investing in our future with 68 percent of new revenue going to K-12 education. On higher education, we will continue to award Hope scholarships at 103 percent of last year's amount. Also, we will create a new Zell Miller Hope grant that will cover 100 percent of tuition for technical college students that maintain a 3.5 GPA.Tax Reform: We have made great strides to reduce the tax burden on our citizens and business community. We removed the annual birthday tax on your vehicle, reduced the marriage tax penalty on working Georgia couples, and eliminated the sales tax on energy for manufacturing jobs. Georgia has the lowest tax burden on its citizens of any state in the nation.Budget: We have continually budgeted conservatively by having our department heads examine their departments using zero-based budgeting. Through this effort, we have reduced the number of state employees by 12,750. We have increased revenues for each quarter since 2011 without raising taxes, and we increased our Rainy Day Fund by 518 percent. We have done all of this and still maintained our AAA bond rating from all three major agencies. We are one of only nine states to have an AAA bond rating from all three major agencies.
For Georgia to continue to grow and make sure we are providing high quality jobs for our kids, we must keep our eye on the ball on education, tax policy and infrastructure investment. I believe the state of Georgia and Senate District 21 is poised for continued growth and success.
to your business!