Georgia Senate Press Office » Blog Archive » JOBS Act of 2009 Overwhelmingly Passes in the Senate

JOBS Act of 2009 Overwhelmingly Passes in the Senate

ATLANTA (March 25, 2009) – The Jobs, Opportunity, and Business Success Act of 2009 (JOBS Act) passed with overwhelming support today in the Georgia State Senate. Senate Majority Leader Chip Rogers (R-Woodstock) championed the JOBS Act through the Senate and worked with House leaders on this vital legislation for Georgia’s economy.

“Today the Senate voted for a true Georgia economic stimulus package. Instead of saddling our children and grand-children with a trillion dollars in new spending, the Georgia Senate moved in a dramatically different direction. We are lowering taxes and reducing regulation. At a time when Georgians need help, job opportunities, and economic growth, the Georgia Legislature has created and passed a solid set of pro-growth policies that will create jobs and grow business,” said Rogers. “Together with House leadership, we listened to and delivered what the people of Georgia asked for – get the government out of the way, let the economy be free and give them room to take care of their own families.”

Recently the Wall Street Journal reported Georgia’s JOBS Act saying, “States are facing their deepest spending crises in decades, and more than two dozen are looking at raising taxes or fees to balance their budgets. But at least one state, Georgia, is bucking the trend and cutting taxes.” (WSJ – 3/17/09 “Georgia Has Tax Cuts on Its Mind”)

House Bill 481 and 482 comprise the JOBS Act with HB 481 providing a one-year filing fee holiday for new businesses, a $500 credit towards the unemployment insurance tax for each newly hired employee that was receiving unemployment benefits, a $2,400 income tax credit for each eligible employee hired, the refund of $186 million in state held sales tax deposits, and the gradual elimination of the Business income tax for Georgia based corporations. HB 482 is a referendum to eliminate the state inventory tax on all Georgia businesses.

Rogers also praised the Act as the most pro-business legislation the General Assembly has ever considered and believes its focus on protecting the small business will be the key to bringing Georgia through the current recession.

“I applaud Representative Tom Graves for his leadership with this bill and working together with Senate to do what’s right for Georgians and the economy. With this legislation Georgia can start the road toward economic recovery for our entire nation,” stated Rogers.

Sen. Chip Rogers serves as Senate Majority Leader. He represents the 21st Senate District which includes portions of Cherokee and Cobb counties. He can be reached at his office at 404.463.1378 or by email at

via Georgia Senate Press Office » Blog Archive » JOBS Act of 2009 Overwhelmingly Passes in the Senate.

Daniel Hannan MEP: The devalued Prime Minister of a devalued Government

When are we gonna get one of our legislatures to talk to President Barack Obama like this? They are still “weak kneed” when it comes to him!

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House Films While Taxpayers Burn | Texans for Fiscal Responsibility

Submitted by MQSullivan on Thu, 03/26/2009 – 7:34am.

Property taxes? Apparently not a concern. Relief for small businesses struggling under the Gross Margins Tax? Who cares! Providing public transparency for our education dollars? Maybe some other time. So what was the first bill to be considered by the Texas House? Subsidies and “incentives” for Hollywood.

The allegedly Republican-run Texas House is making it easier for Hollywood to reach into the state coffers under the legislation brought forward by Austin Democrat Dawnna Dukes.

Supporters liken these subsidies and incentives to property tax abatement — not exactly a winning comparison. Any time government subsidizes a specific business or industry #or gives them a pass on paying the generally levied taxes#, the burden on everyone is higher than it should otherwise be.

Economic development doesn’t arise from government picking winners (those receiving special treatment) and losers (everyone else).

Instead, economic development occurs when all market actors are free to engage with minimal government intrusion and disruption, and individuals freely invest their resources in the businesses (and business models) that appeal to them. Government is inherently bad at wise investment. Anyone noticed the operations of Frannie and Freddie?

My favorite rally-cry among supporters of this silly effort is Texas must engage in this reckless subsidization of Hollywood because other states do it. Yes, states that are — to a one — bankrupt and hemoragging jobs. So while the movie industry might be “healthy” in those states, every other business is shutting down and employment is dropping like a rock. Yes, let’s do that, too.

Sorry, but just because “everyone else does it” isn’t exactly a sound method by which to judge economic or moral virtue.

In the absence of doing the right thing — cutting taxes and regulations for everyone — legislators are happy to give breaks to those with the sexiest lobby and glitziest spokesmen. After all, that concentrates even more power in the hands of the legislators. But that’s not a good way to do the people’s business.

So while you consider how your family can afford to pay property taxes this year, and wonder if your business will stay afloat another month, rest happy knowing your tax dollars are flowing into the multi-billion-dollar entertainment industry. Maybe you’ll get mentioned in the credits.

via House Films While Taxpayers Burn | Texans for Fiscal Responsibility.

Proposed pay raises spark ire

By Mike Ward

AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF

Thursday, March 26, 2009

At a time when most Texans are glad to have a job and when lawmakers are not planning raises for many state employees, Senate leaders have proposed granting mostly four- and five-figure raises to the top officials at 45 state agencies.

Their rationale: The raises are needed to keep state pay competitive.

Under a plan included in the Senate version of the budget, the minimum pay for an executive director at most state agencies would be $70,000, up from $51,048. The maximum salary would jump from $222,804 to $292,500.

“We’ve got to stay comparable to other similar positions. Some of these are giant state agencies,” said state Sen. Steve Ogden, R-Bryan, chairman of the budget-writing Senate Finance Committee that earlier this year publicly criticized more than $3 million in bonuses handed out at the University of Texas Investment Management Co.

Ogden noted that raising the salaries of the state’s agency directors was recommended in a state auditor’s report last year, to keep the state competitive in its executive salaries.

In an August 2008 report — before the economy tanked — the state auditor’s office recommended that executive pay at state agencies be restructured “in order to attract and retain high-quality chief administrators.”

The audit reviewed 84 executive officer salaries and found “that the salaries for these positions are, on average, 27 percent behind similar professional positions in the market.”

But Brian Olsen, executive director of a union that represents Texas correctional officers that are lobbying for a 20 percent raise, said the proposal “reeks.”

“They’re giving pay raises to the wrong people,” he said. “Until they take care of state employees, they shouldn’t be giving raises to anyone. It’s appalling.”

In all, under the Senate proposal, 45 of 147 executive positions would get raises. Total cost: just over $538,000 a year.

The biggest proposed raise would go to the executive director of the Texas Cancer Research and Prevention Institute, whose salary would jump from more than $61,000 a year to $214,000.

Ogden said that is because the institute is being funded with more than $600 million in bonding authority for the first time, which will eventually reach $3 billion, and that the new pay scale is commensurate with those responsibilities.

The proposed salary of the executive director of the Pension Review Board, a clearinghouse for pensions in Texas, would jump from $60,000 to $106,500.

The recommendations for the raises were adopted last week….

Read more by clicking on the link..

via Proposed pay raises spark ire.

Threats to AIG: “We Will Get Your Children” | NBC Connecticut

Documents reveal the level of threats against AIG employees

By ANDREW PERGAM

Updated 5:58 AM EDT, Thu, Mar 26, 2009

Related Topics: American International Group Inc.

Protestors outside the AIG office aren’t the only ones upset about executives’ bonuses. The insurance giant has also been receiving harassing e-mails.

The anger in the threats against AIG executives is palpable.

“Get the bonus, we will get your children,” someone identified only as “Jacob the Killer” hauntingly writes in an e-mail.

Blame Them For Your Empty Wallet.  We get it – the economy is in a downward spiral. But whose fault is it? Time magazine has laid out a list of the recession’s biggest budget-busters, the…His is one of dozens of threats against AIG and its employees that were obtained from Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal’s office under a Freedom of Information Act request by NBC Connecticut.

Surprisingly, some of those making the threats left their e-mail addresses and phone numbers – making the job of law enforcement officers easier.

Here are some of the highlights (or rather, low-lights). We’ve cleaned up some of the nasty language, but you can use your imagination:

– All you motherf***ers should be shot. Thanks for f***ing up our economy then taking our money.

– Dear Sir: Ya’ll should have the balls and come clean and give back the bonuses. I know you would never do this so the gov’t ought to take you out back and shoot everyone of you crooked sonofb****es…I would be very careful when I went out side. This is just a warning. If I were ya’ll I would be real afraid. Thanks, Bill.

– I don’t hope that bad things happen to the recipients of those bonuses. I really hope that bad things happen to the children and grandchildren of them! Whatever hurts them the most!!

– You f***ing suck. Paying bonuses to the d*****s that made bad bets losing your company billions of dollars. I want to f***ing puke. Publish the list of those yankee scumbags so some good old southern boys can take care of them.

– If the bonuses don’t stop, it will be very likely that every CEO @ AIG has a bulls-eye on their backs.

– We will hunt you down. Every last penny. We will hunt your children and we will hunt your conscience. We will do whatever we can to get those people getting the bonuses. Give back the money or kill yourselves.

– All the executives and their families should be executed with piano wire around their necks — my greatest hope.

– You mother-f***ing,%2…

Click on the link below to read more…

via Threats to AIG: “We Will Get Your Children” | NBC Connecticut.

Postal chief says post office running out of money

WASHINGTON (AP) – The post office will run out of money this year unless it gets help, Postmaster General John Potter told Congress on Wednesday as he sought permission to cut delivery to five days a week.

“We are facing losses of historic proportion. Our situation is critical,” Potter told a House panel.

The agency lost $2.8 billion last year and is looking at much larger losses this year. Reducing mail delivery from six days to five days a week could save $3.5 billion annually, Potter said.

Potter also urged changes in how the post office pre-pays for retiree health care to cut its annual costs by $2 billion.

If the Postal Service does run out of money, the lingering question, Potter told the House Oversight post office subcommittee, is which bills will be paid and which will not. Ensuring the payment of workers’ salaries comes first, he said, but other bills may have to wait.

Potter first raised the possibility of delivery cutbacks in January, but the idea has not been warmly received in Congress.

“With the Postal Service facing budget shortfalls, the subcommittee will consider a number of options to restore financial stability and examine ways for the Postal Service to continue to operate without cutting services,” subcommittee chairman Stephen F. Lynch, D-Mass., said.

Lynch said the financial stability of the Postal Service is “critical to the American expectation of affordable six-day mail delivery.”

Even if the agency succeeds in reaching its planned cost cuts of $5.9 billion, there could still be a $6 billion deficit in 2010, Potter said.

“Without a change we will exhaust our cash resources,” he said. “We can no longer afford business as usual.”

Asked if layoffs would occur, Potter said it is possible but he hopes avoidable.

Last week, the post office said it planned to offer early retirement to 150,000 workers and is eliminating 1,400 management positions and closing six of its 80 district offices in cost-cutting efforts. Potter said he expects 10,000 to 15,000 workers to accept the early retirement offer.

Click on the link below to read the full story…

via Postal chief says post office running out of money.

I’m having a very good crisis, says Soros – who made £1billion as the world plunged into recession | Mail Online

George Soros formed moveon.org to target capitalism and plung our country in a recession from which he is now profiting. Go figure!  He is pleased as punch.  His plan is workng.  Wake up people!

By Mail Foreign Service

Last updated at 5:13 PM on 25th March 2009

George Soros said the current economic crisis has been the culmination of his life’s work.  A hedge fund manager who predicted the global credit crunch has said the financial crisis has been ’stimulating’ and the culmination of his life’s work.George Soros, who predicted the global financial crisis twice before, was one of the few people to anticipate and prepare for the current economic collapse.Mr Soros said his prediction meant he was better able to brace his Quantum investment fund against the gloabal storm.

But other investors failed to take notice of his prediction and his decision to come out of retirement in 2007 to manage the fund made him $US2.9 billion. And while the financial crisis continued to deepen across the globe, the 78-year-old still managed to make $1.1 billion last year.’It is, in a way, the culminating point of my life’s work,’ he told national newspaper The Australian.

Soros is one of 25, top hedge fund managers from across Wall Street who have defied the credit crunch crisis to reap a total of $11.6billion (£7.9bn) last year.

The managers made their profit by trading above the pain in the markets, according to Institutional Investor’s Alpha Magazine.Former maths professor James H. Simons, who has made billions in hedge fund Renaissance Technologies, earned $2.5 billion running computer-driven trading strategies. And John A. Paulson, who made his fortune by betting against the housing market, came in second earning $2 billion.

Click on the link below to read more…

via ‘I’m having a very good crisis,’ says Soros – who made £1billion as the world plunged into recession | Mail Online.

My Way News – States consider drug tests for welfare recipients

Mar 26, 7:32 AM (ET)

By TOM BREEN

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) – Want government assistance? Just say no to drugs.

Lawmakers in at least eight states want recipients of food stamps, unemployment benefits or welfare to submit to random drug testing.

The effort comes as more Americans turn to these safety nets to ride out the recession. Poverty and civil liberties advocates fear the strategy could backfire, discouraging some people from seeking financial aid and making already desperate situations worse.

Those in favor of the drug tests say they are motivated out of a concern for their constituents’ health and ability to put themselves on more solid financial footing once the economy rebounds. But proponents concede they also want to send a message: you don’t get something for nothing.

“Nobody’s being forced into these assistance programs,” said Craig Blair, a Republican in the West Viginia Legislature who has created a Web site – notwithmytaxdollars.com – that bears a bobble-headed likeness of himself advocating this position. “If so many jobs require random drug tests these days, why not these benefits?”

Blair is proposing the most comprehensive measure in the country, as it would apply to anyone applying for food stamps, unemployment compensation or the federal programs usually known as “welfare”: Temporary Assistance for Needy Families and Women, Infants and Children.

Lawmakers in other states are offering similar, but more modest proposals.

On Wednesday, the Kansas House of Representatives approved a measure mandating drug testing for the 14,000 or so people getting cash assistance from the state, which now goes before the state senate. In February, the Oklahoma Senate unanimously passed a measure that would require drug testing as a condition of receiving TANF benefits, and similar bills have been introduced in Missouri and Hawaii. A Florida senator has proposed a bill linking unemployment compensation to drug testing, and a member of Minnesota’s House of Representatives has a bill requiring drug tests of people who get public assistance under a state program there.

Read more by clicking on the link below…

via My Way News – States consider drug tests for welfare recipients.

Karl Rove Says Barack Obama Has Made Taxes and Spending Big Issues Again – WSJ.com

By KARL ROVE

Something powerful is stirring in the land, and it may not be good news for President Barack Obama, his agenda or the Democratic Party. Mr. Obama said Tuesday night his budget moves America “from an era of borrow and spend” to “save and invest.” But people are realizing he would add $9.3 trillion to the national debt, doubling it in six years and nearly tripling it in 10 years, according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). How can that be “save and invest”?

APIn his inaugural address, Mr. Obama told us, “The stale political arguments that have consumed us for so long no longer apply.” He wants to turn to new issues of education, health care and green jobs, which he plugged at every opportunity in Tuesday’s press conference.

Suddenly, though, it doesn’t seem like a time of new politics and new concerns. Many Americans are anxious — and in some cases angry — about a set of old issues: deficits, taxes and the national debt. Mr. Obama’s radical budget, his administration’s slapdash operating manner, and events such as the AIG bonuses have revived animosity over government’s size and cost.

In response, tea parties are sprouting up, and opposition is growing to more bailouts, more spending, higher taxes and larger deficits, even among Congressional Democrats.

Last fiscal year, the deficit was $459 billion. For this fiscal year, it was $569 billion when Mr. Obama took office. Under his proposals, another $1.276 trillion will be added to the deficit this year, for a total of $1.845 trillion.

The CBO says deficits will fall for three years to $658 billion, still nearly 50% larger than any past deficit. After that, deficits go back up every year, reaching the trillion-dollar a year mark again in nine years. By 2019, the debt would reach 82.4% of GDP, a level not seen since 1947. With astonishing candor, even Peter Orszag, the president’s budget director conceded these levels of deficits and debt are “unsustainable.”

About Karl Rove

Karl Rove served as Senior Advisor to President George W. Bush from 2000–2007 and Deputy Chief of Staff from 2004–2007. At the White House he oversaw the Offices of Strategic Initiatives, Political Affairs, Public Liaison, and Intergovernmental Affairs and was Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy, coordinating the White House policy making process.

Before Karl became known as “The Architect” of President Bush’s 2000 and 2004 campaigns, he was president of Karl Rove + Company, an Austin-based public affairs firm that worked for Republican candidates, nonpartisan causes, and nonprofit groups. His clients included over 75 Republican U.S. Senate, Congressional and gubernatorial candidates in 24 states, as well as the Moderate Party of Sweden.

Karl writes a weekly op-ed for The Wall…..

Click o n the link below to read more…

via Karl Rove Says Barack Obama Has Made Taxes and Spending Big Issues Again – WSJ.com.